One day Mikael and Truls had gone into one of the petrol stations where they knew Julle and TV stole fuel. Julle and TV filled the Kawasaki tanks from the self-service pumps while their girls sat at the back with their denim jackets casually tied around their waists covering the number plates. Then the boys jumped on their bikes and rode off full throttle.
Mikael gave them the full names and addresses of Julle and TV, but of just one of the girls, TV’s girlfriend. The owner had looked sceptical, wondering whether he hadn’t seen Truls’s face before on a CCTV camera; at any rate he resembled the lad who had stolen a jerrycan of petrol not long before the empty workmen’s shed at Manglerud went up in flames. Mikael had said he didn’t want any reward for the information, he just wanted the guilty parties held responsible for their actions. He assumed the owner was aware of his social duty. The grown-up man had nodded, somewhat surprised. Mikael had that effect on people. As they left, Mikael said he was going to apply to Police College after school and Beavis should consider doing the same – there were even policemen in his family.
Later, Mikael had got together with Ulla, and they hadn’t seen so much of each other. But after school and Police College they had been employed by the same police station in Stovner, a real east Oslo suburb with gang crimes, burglaries and even the odd murder. After a year Mikael had married Ulla and been promoted. Truls, or Beavis, as he had been called from day three, roughly, reported to him and the future had looked good for Truls and radiant for Mikael. Until some knucklehead, a civilian temp in the salaries office, had accused Bellman of smashing his jaw after the Christmas dinner. He had no proof, and Truls knew for certain that Mikael had not done it. But in all the hubbub Mikael had applied for a move anyway, been accepted at Europol, moved to the head office in The Hague where he soon became a star, too.
When Mikael returned to Norway and Kripos, the second thing he did was to ring Truls and ask: ‘Beavis, are you ready to blow up rats again?’
The first was to employ Jussi.
Jussi Kolkka was a an expert in half a dozen martial arts whose names you forget before they have been fully articulated. He had worked at Europol for four years, and before that he had been a policeman in Helsinki. Jussi Kolkka had been forced to resign from Europol because he had crossed the line during an investigation into a series of rapes targeting teenage girls in southern Europe. Kolkka had, it was said, beaten up a sex offender so badly that even his brief had had trouble recognising him. But he had no trouble threatening Europol with a lawsuit. Truls had tried to get Jussi to tell him the gory detail, but he had just stared into the distance without speaking. Fair enough, Truls wasn’t the talkative type, either. And he had noticed that the less you speak, the greater the chance people will underrate you. Which was not always a bad thing. Nevertheless. Tonight they had reason to celebrate. Mikael, himself, Jussi and Kripos had won. And in Mikael’s absence they would have to call the shots themselves.
‘Shut up!’ shouted Truls, pointing to the TV attached to the wall above the bar at Kafé Justisen. And heard his own nervous grunted laugh when his colleagues actually did what he said. There was silence around the tables and the bar. Everyone was staring at the newsreader, who looked straight into the camera and announced what they had been waiting for.
‘Today Kripos arrested a man suspected of killing six people, including Marit Olsen.’
Cheers broke out, mugs of beer were swung, silencing the newsreader until a deep voice with a Finnish-Swedish accent boomed ‘Shut up!’
The Kripos officers obeyed and focused their attention on Mikael Bellman who was standing outside their building in Bryn with a furry microphone thrust into his face.
‘This person is a suspect, will be interviewed by Kripos and thereafter appear in court for a preliminary hearing,’ Mikael Bellman said.
‘Does that mean you believe the police have solved this case?’
‘Finding the perpetrator and getting him convicted are two different things,’ Bellman said with a tiny smile at the corners of his mouth. ‘However, our investigation at Kripos has uncovered so much circumstantial evidence and so many coincidences that we considered it appropriate to make an immediate arrest as there was a risk of further crimes and a tampering of evidence.’
‘The man you have arrested is in his thirties. Can you tell us any more about him?’
‘He has a previous conviction for violence; that is all I can say.’
‘On the Internet there are rumours circulating about the man’s identity. Suggesting he’s a well-known investor who among other things is engaged to the daughter of a famous shipowner. Can you confirm these rumours, Bellman?’