Free Dregs by Jørn Lier Horst Page A

crime school where new contacts were formed.
    ‘Those who are convicted of murder are an unsuitable statistical group if you want to look at the rate of recidivism,’ he replied, trying to avoid the question. ‘Most people who become murderers find themselves in some kind of extreme situation that they probably only encounter once in their lives.’
    ‘Under those circumstances punishment doesn’t serve any purpose.’ Line rinsed her glass and placed it in the dishwasher. ‘Then it isn’t the fear of punishment that prevents them from committing another crime?’
    ‘Perhaps it doesn’t have any individual preventive effect in murder cases,’ Wisting conceded, ‘but we must certainly have laws and regulations. That someone is punished will hopefully act as a deterrent to others.’
    ‘People who are in such an extreme situation that they commit murder, probably don’t think so rationally that they take into account the possibility of punishment before they kill?’
    Wisting put down his plate and took a glass out of the cupboard. ‘Now you’re pestering me with philosophy,’ he grunted, filling his glass from the tap. He liked these discussions with his daughter, but at the moment he didn’t have the ability to concentrate. ‘It depends on the circumstances,’ he attempted as a final argument.
    Line took out the newspaper article about the man who had first knifed his girlfriend to death 35 years previously, and who had done the same thing again 21 years later. ‘A prison sentence didn’t help Åge Reinholdt.’
    ‘Perhaps we should have capital punishment?’ Wisting suggested, to provoke her in the same way that she had provoked him.
    She didn’t take the bait. ‘I’m going to talk to him on Saturday,’ she went on. ‘He lives in Gusland. His parents were from Brunlanes, but moved to Oslo before he was born. His mother died when he was little, but his father moved back and took over the farm from his grandparents while he was serving his first prison sentence. Now he has taken it over.’
    ‘Are you going alone?’
    She nodded. Wisting did not like the thought, but said nothing. He knew he would not be able to persuade her to change her plans.
    ‘Did you know about it?’ she enquired. ‘That there were two murderers in your district? Åge Reinholdt and Ken Ronny Hauge.’
    Wisting shook his head. Not two, he thought, thinking of the severed feet. Three.

CHAPTER 13
    He didn’t switch on the light, but put on the coffee machine and stood at the window looking down at the square in front of the police station, waiting for the water to run through the filter. He was trying to order his thoughts.
    The bulletin about Camilla Thaulow was already prepared and lying on his office desk. The short press release described her, the car in which she had disappeared and the clothes she had been wearing at the time. Dark trousers, white blouse, checked scarf around her neck and a pair of black trainers. A folder of photographs accompanied the report. It had not been easy to find a recent image, as she didn’t have a passport and the photo albums at home had not been updated for many years. One of her work colleagues had, however, found a suitably neutral picture that had been taken at the Christmas dinner the previous year. She neither smiled nor showed other emotions. Her hair was styled in the way that her colleagues said it had been while she worked at the nursing home.
    The coffee machine rumbled lightly and emitted hot steam. He filled a cup and returned to the window. The new day was going to be a fine one. Buildings in the town centre twinkled with a brownish-red hue in the morning sunshine and the streets were quiet. One of the council’s cleansing vehicles moved slowly across the grey asphalt. The cup was slightly too hot to hold. He took a careful gulp, moved his hand and carried it to the table, deciding to go through the cases of the two men missing from the nursing home one more time.
    Torkel