The Katharina Code (Volume 1) (The Cold Case Quartet) - Softcover

Buch 1 von 5: Cold Case Quartet

Horst, Jørn Lier

 
9781668076071: The Katharina Code (Volume 1) (The Cold Case Quartet)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1668076071 ISBN 13: 9781668076071
Verlag: Scribner Canada, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Set between the icy streets and dark forests of Norway, a heart-stopping story of one man’s obsession with his coldest case, by “one of the most brilliantly understated crime novelists writing today” (The Sunday Times, London).

Katharina went missing twenty-four years ago. Each year on the anniversary of her disappearance, Chief Inspector William Wisting rereads her files, searching for the answer he could never find; the code he could never solve. And he visits Katharina’s husband, Martin Haugen, the brokenhearted man he could never help.

Until now.

This year is different. Another woman is missing under similar circumstances. But so is Katharina’s husband. Wisting has to find him, but is he rescuing a dear old friend or playing a deadly game with a killer?

A brilliantly understated crime novel that examines the long-term costs of lying to ourselves and each other through an atmospheric psychological game of cat-and-mouse.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jørn Lier Horst worked as a police officer and head of investigations before becoming a full-time writer, establishing himself as one of the most successful authors to come out of Scandinavia. He writes engaging and intelligent crime novels that offer an uncommonly detailed and realistic insight into the way serious crimes are investigated, as well as how both police and press work. His books have sold over two million copies in his native Norway alone and he’s published in twenty-six languages. His literary awards include the Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize, the Riverton Prize (Golden Revolver), the Scandinavian Glass Key, and the prestigious Martin Beck Award.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1 1
The three cardboard boxes were stored at the bottom of the wardrobe. Wisting lifted out the largest. One corner had started to tear, so he had to be careful as he carried it into the living room.

He opened the lid and removed the top ring binder—black, with a faded label on the spine: Katharina Haugen. Laying it aside, he took out a red binder marked Witnesses I and two others of the same colour tagged Witnesses II and Witnesses III. Soon he found what he was looking for—the ring binder labelled Kleiverveien.

These cardboard boxes contained everything written and undertaken in the Katharina case. Strictly speaking, he should not have brought the case documents home, but he felt they did not deserve to be locked away in an archive room. Sitting there at the bottom of his wardrobe, they reminded him of the case every time he took out a shirt.

He picked up his reading glasses and sat down with the ring binder on his lap. One whole year had passed since he had last looked through it.

Kleiverveien was where Katharina had lived. The unpretentious detached house, surrounded by forest, had been photographed from various angles. In the background of one of the images it was just possible to make out the shimmering waters of Kleiver Lake. The house itself was situated on a small plateau, about a hundred metres from the road. It was brown, trimmed in white, with a green door and empty window boxes on the ledges.

Browsing through the folder of photographs was like walking through a ghost house. Katharina was gone, but her shoes were left on the floor in the porch. A pair of grey trainers, some brown leather boots and a pair of clogs, beside her husband’s clumpy sandals and work boots. Three jackets hung from the row of pegs. On the chest of drawers in the hallway lay a ballpoint pen and a shopping list, an unopened letter, a newspaper and a few unaddressed flyers. A half-withered bouquet of roses lay beside an ornament. A few little memos were stuck to the mirror above the chest—one with a date and time, another with a name and phone number, and a third with three initials and a sum of money. AML 125 kr.

Her suitcase lay open on the bed, full of clothes, as if she had intended to be away for some time: ten pairs of socks, ten pairs of briefs, ten T-shirts, five pairs of trousers, five sweaters, five blouses and a tracksuit. There was something about the contents he had never managed to make sense of, though he could not quite put his finger on why. The selection seemed so rigid and formal, as if it had been packed by someone else, or for someone else.

He continued to peruse the photos. Five books taken from the bookcase lay on the coffee table. Wisting had read some of them himself: Mengele Zoo, The Alchemist and The Satanic Verses. Beside them was a photograph of Katharina with Martin Haugen, taken at a scenic viewpoint—they were standing with their arms around each other, smiling at whoever had taken the picture. The picture had been framed but had been removed from its frame and lay beside the glass.

The photographs of the kitchen were the ones that caused the greatest puzzlement. A plate with a slice of bread and butter and a glass of milk were left on the kitchen counter. The chair she usually sat in had been pushed out from the table, and on the table lay a ballpoint pen and what subsequently became known as “The Katharina Code.”

Wisting squinted at the photocopy of it, which comprised a series of numbers arranged along three vertical lines. So far, no one had succeeded in deciphering its meaning.

In addition to the police’s own experts, they had involved cryptologists from the military’s security centre in the examination of the mysterious message, without arriving any closer to a solution. The code had also been sent to experts abroad but, to them, the paper had also seemed to hold a senseless combination of numbers.

Wisting turned the copy this way and that, as if something might change on this occasion to allow him to grasp its significance.

All of a sudden he looked up. Line had come in, but he had failed to catch what his daughter had said. He had not even registered that she had entered the room.

“Eh?” he asked, as he removed his reading glasses, leaving them hanging from a cord around his neck.

Line sat down with her daughter on her knee and began to take off the toddler’s jacket and shoes, all the while peering over at the cardboard box Wisting had brought out.

“I’d forgotten tomorrow is 10 October,” she repeated.

As Wisting put down the ring binder, he held out his arms to his granddaughter and lifted her on to his lap. She was no longer a baby. The helpless little creature he had held in his arms for the very first time fourteen months earlier had now developed a personality of her own. He pressed his lips to her round cheek and gave her a loud kiss. Amalie burst out laughing and tried to catch hold of his glasses with her chubby hands. Unhitching them, he laid them well out of her reach.

“Do you think there’s anything in there you haven’t read before?” Line asked, gesturing at the ring binder on the table.

She seemed annoyed and out of sorts.

“Is something wrong?” Wisting queried.

With a sigh, Line thrust her hand into her bag and quickly dug out a yellow plastic strip. A lipstick, a ballpoint pen, a packet of chewing gum and other bits and pieces spilled out of her bag at the same time.

“I got a parking ticket,” she explained, tossing it on the table before stuffing the rest of the contents back into her bag. “Seven hundred kroner.”

Wisting glanced at it. “Parking in contravention of sign 372,” he read out. “What is sign 372?”

“No parking.”

With a broad smile, Wisting bent down and rubbed his nose on his granddaughter’s cheek.

“Mummy got a fine,” he said, in an affected voice.

Line rose to her feet. “I can’t fathom why you still keep going through these papers,” she said, heading for the kitchen. “After all these years.”

“Are you going to complain?” Wisting asked. “About the parking fine?”

“There’s nothing to complain about,” Line answered. “I didn’t see the sign. I’ll just have to pay the money.”

Returning with a teaspoon, she produced a yogurt from the changing bag and hoisted Amalie on to her lap.

“Have you found any more of her relatives?” Wisting asked.

Line tore off the lid of the yogurt pot. “A few fourth and fifth cousins in Bergen,” she replied, flashing him a smile.

“How do you get to be a fifth cousin?” Wisting quizzed her.

“When you have four-times-great-grandparents in common,” Line explained as she fed Amalie.

“And what four-times-great-grandfather are we talking about?”

“Arthur Thorsen,” Line specified. “He was Mum’s great-great-grandfather.”

“Never heard of him,” Wisting admitted.

“Born on Askøy in 1870,” Line told him.

With a shake of the head, Wisting picked up the report he had been reading. “And you think I’m messing about with old papers?” he said jokingly.

“But what you’re looking for isn’t...

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Verlag
Scribner Canada
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1668076071
ISBN 13 
9781668076071
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
416
Kontakt zum Hersteller
webstar
casetta@mondadori.it

Via Mondadori 1,
Segrate Milano
20090
Italien

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Softcover