“He was avoiding the area with most snow. Less work to get rid of his footprints afterwards.”
Kaja nodded slowly. “He must have reconnoitred carefully in advance if he knew about the camera.”
“Yes. And he carried out the murder with almost military precision.”
“Almost?”
“He got in the car first, and came close to forgetting the camera.”
“He hadn’t planned it?”
“Yes,” Harry said, lifting the cup to his lips. “Everything was planned, down to the last detail. Such as the fact that the light inside the car didn’t come on when he got in and out of the car. He’d switched it off beforehand in case any of the neighbours heard the car and looked over to see who it was.”
“But they’d still have seen his car.”
“I doubt it was his car. If it had been, he’d have parked farther away. It looked almost as if hewantedto have the car at the scene.”
“So that any eventual witnesses could mislead the police?”
“Mm.” Harry swallowed the coffee and pulled a face.
“Sorry I haven’t got any freeze-dried,” Kaja said. “So what’s the conclusion? Was it perfectly executed or not?”
“I don’t know.” Harry leaned back to pull his cigarettes from his trouser pocket. “Almost forgetting about the camera doesn’t fit with the rest of it. And it looked like he was swaying in the doorway, did you see? Almost as if the person coming out isn’t the same person who went in. And what was he doing in there for two and a half hours?”
“What do you think?”
“I think he was high. Drugs or drink. Does Roar Bohr take any pills?”
Kaja shook her head and fixed her gaze on the wall behind Harry.
“Is that a no?” he asked.
“It’s an I-don’t-know.”
“But you’re not ruling it out?”
“Ruling out the possibility that a Special Forces officer who’s been on three tours to Afghanistan is on pills? Absolutely not.”
“Mm. Can you remove the memory card? I’ll take it to Bjørn, maybe Forensics can get something out of the images.”
“Sure.” Kaja took hold of the camera. “What are your thoughts about the knife? Why doesn’t he get rid of it in the same place as the memory card?”
Harry inspected the remains of his coffee. “The crime scene indicates that he had some idea of how the police work. So he probably also knows the way we search the area around the scene for a possible murder weapon, and that the chances that we’d find a knife in a rubbish bin less than a kilometre from the scene is relatively large.”
“But the memory card…”
“…was OK to get rid of. He wasn’t counting on us even looking for that. Who would know that Rakel had a camouflaged wildlife camera in her garden?”
“So where’s the knife?”
“I don’t know. But I’d guess it’s in the perpetrator’s home.”
“Why?” Kaja asked as she looked at the camera screen. “If it gets found there, he’s as good as convicted.”
“Because he doesn’t think he’s a suspect. A knife doesn’t rot, it doesn’t melt, it needs to be hidden somewhere it willneverbe found. And the first place we can think of good hiding places is where we live. Having it nearby also gives us a sense of being in control of our own fate.”
“But if he used a knife he took from the scene and wiped his prints off it, the only way it could be traced back to him is if it’s found in his home. Home is the last place I’d have chosen.”
