Kaja laughed. “If I’d had the money in 2004, I’d have invested in it.”
“And?”
“And would have lost it. The second interview with Ringdal is from 2009, and has the headlineBlack belt bankrupt. The investors lost everything and are furious with Ringdal. He for his part claims that he’s the victim, and that people with no vision for the future have ruined things for him by cutting off the money. Did you know he used to be Norwegian judo champion?”
“Mm.”
“He says something funny, actually…” Kaja scrolled down and read out loud with laughter in her voice: “ ‘The so-called financial elite are a gang of parasites who think it takes intelligence to get rich in a country with fifty successive years of growth. Whereas in fact the only thing you need is an inferiority complex, a willingness to risk other people’s money, and being born after 1960. Our so-called financial elite are a gaggle of blind hens in a corn silo, and Norway is the paradise of mediocrity.’ ”
“Strong words.”
“It doesn’t stop there, he’s got a conspiracy theory as well.”
Harry watched steam rise from the cup on the table in front of her. That meant fresh coffee in the kitchen. “Let’s hear it.”
“ ‘This development is inescapable, and who has most to lose from it?’ ”
“Are you asking me?”
“I’m reading from the interview!”
“You’d better use your funny voice, then.”
Kaja shot him a warning glance.
“Car manufacturers?” Harry sighed. “Road builders? Oil companies?”
Kaja cleared her throat and looked back at the screen: “ ‘Just like the big arms manufacturers, the car companies are extremely powerful players, and they live or die with private motoring. So they’re fighting desperately against development by pretending to be trailblazers. But when they try to convince people that driverless cars are the solution, of course it isn’t because they want better transport solutions, but because they want to slow things down as long as possible and carry on producing one-ton monsters even if they know that this is of no benefit to the world, and actually uses up its limited resources. And they’re trying to smother any other initiatives with everything they’ve got. They’ve been out to get me from day one. They haven’t managed to put me off, but they’ve obviously managed to frighten my investors.’ ” She looked up.
“And after that?” Harry asked.
“Not much. A short piece in 2016, also inFinansavisen, about the Norwegian Musk-wannabe Peter Ringdal, who is currently running a small tobacconist’s in Hellerud, but who once ruled a castle in the air that didn’t last long despite the fact that experts at the Institute of Transport Economics praised it as the most sensible proposal for the future of personal transportation, especially in cities.”
“Criminal record?”
“One report for beating up a guy when he was working as a bouncer while he was a student, and one for careless driving, also when he was a student. He wasn’t convicted in either instance. But I’ve found something else. An abandoned missing person case.”
“Oh?”
“His second ex-wife, Andrea Klitchkova, was reported missing last year. Because the case was dropped, the files have been deleted, but I found a copy of an email from the Norwegian friend who reported Andrea missing. She wrote that Andrea had told her that before she left Ringdal, he had threatened her several times with a knife when she criticised him about the bankruptcy. I found the friend’s number and had a chat with her. She says the police spoke to Ringdal, but then she got an email from Russia, from Andrea, in which she apologised for not telling her she was going leave so suddenly. Because Andrea was a Russian citizen, the matter was passed on to the Russian police.”
“And?”
“Presumably Andrea was found, because there’s nothing more about the case in the police’s files.”
Harry stood up and walked towards the kitchen. “How come you’ve got access to police files?” Harry asked. “Did IT forget to cancel your access?”
“No, but I’ve still got my access chip, and you told me your friend’s user ID and password.”
“Did I?”
“BH100 and HW1953. Have you forgotten?”
It’s gone, Harry thought as he got a cup out of the kitchen cupboard and poured himself some coffee from the cafetière. Ståle Aune had warned him about Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome, which was when alcoholics slowly but surely drank away their ability to remember things. Well, at least he could remember the names Wernicke and Korsakoff. And he hardly ever forgot things he’d done when he was sober. And there were rarely such long, totally blank gaps as there were for the night of the murder. Passwords.
He looked at the pictures hanging on the wall between the cupboards and worktop.
A faded photograph of a boy and a girl in the back seat of a car. Kaja’s sharp teeth were smiling for the photographer, the boy had his arm round her, he must be her older brother, Even. Another picture showed Kaja with a dark-haired woman who was a head shorter than her. Kaja was wearing a T-shirt and khaki trousers, the other woman in Western dress with a hijab over her head, with a desert landscape behind them. The shadow of a camera tripod was etched on the ground in front of them, but no photographer. Taken using a timer. It was just a photograph, but something about the way they were standing, so close together, put Harry in mind of the same sense he got from the picture taken in the car. An intimacy.
