Cnut - High Dive

By Stig Larssen

Though Cnut has the law firmly on his side, when he finds himself up against one of the richest men in the country, Harald Haraldsen, a megalomaniac who has almost every judge in his pocket, and literally owns everyone on his huge estate, he finds himself stymied at every turn. Each piece of evidence he obtains is classed as illegally procured – even after he exhumes the corpse of a man who was obviously strangled to death from the estate cemetery. Worse, Haraldsen deliberately mocks him while the exhumation is carried out.

Despite being pressed by his boss and by the Minister of Justice to give up the investigation of the billionaire, Cnut is determined to bring him down.

Using satellite imagery, supplied by his old friend Ole Olsen, head of the Secret Service, Cnut and his team plot the routes of every vehicle owned by Haraldsen, including those of the Ragnar Shipping Line that he owns, and use surveillance teams for weeks, until they have enough information on his crimes to launch simultaneous nationwide raids, involving dozens of officers.

Those crimes involve the abduction of scores of young girls from Brazil, the carriage of those girls on Ragnar Line ships, their imprisonment, sale to sex traffickers, and personal use by Haraldsen, whom Cnut catches in bed naked with two of them.

He still believes he is beyond the law, and expects that he will be allowed house arrest by a friendly judge, but Cnut arranges for an embittered old judge, close to retirement, to hear the arraignment, and ruins Haraldsen's hopes until the date of his trial – by keeping him locked in a cell.

In the meantime, Cnut travels to Brazil with some of the repatriated girls, and makes certain arrangements with the police chief there.

Haraldsen is in for a shock.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TONY NASH
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224513482

Stig Larssen

Stig Larssen is the Norwegian pen name of Tony Nash – acclaimed author of over thirty detective, historical and war novels, who began his career as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, later re-training at Bletchley Park to become an electronic spy, intercepting Russian and East German agent transmissions, during which time he studied many languages and achieved a BA Honours Degree from London University. Diverse occupations followed: Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school, ocean yacht skipper, deep sea fisher, fly tyer, antique dealer, bespoke furniture maker, restorer and French polisher, professional deer stalker and creative writer.

Book preview

Other works by this author:

THE TONY DYCE/NORFOLK THRILLERS:

Murder by Proxy

Murder on the Back Burner

Murder on the Chess Board

Murder on the High ‘C’

Murder on Tiptoes

Bled and Breakfast

THE JOHN HUNTER/MET. COP THRILLERS:

Carve Up

Single to Infinity

The Most Unkindest Cut

The Iago Factor

Blockbuster

Bloodlines

Beyond Another Curtain

HISTORICAL NOVELS – THE NORFOLK TRILOGY:

A Most Capricious Whim

A Handful of Salt

A Handful of Courage (WWI EPIC)

No Tears For Tomorrow  WWII EPIC)

THE HARRY PAGE THRILLERS:

Tripled Exposure

Unseemly Exposure

So Dark, The Spiral

THE NORWEGIAN SERIES – author Stig Larssen:

LOOT

CNUT – The Man Who Bit The Bullet

CNUT – Past Present

CNUT – The Isiaih Prophesies

CNUT – Paid in Spades

CNUT – The Sin Debt

CNUT – They Tumble Headlong

CNUT – Night Prowler

CNUT -  Cry Wolf

CNUT -  When The Pie Was Opened

CNUT – The Bottom of the Pot

CNUT -  Mind Games

CNUT -  Nemesis

CNUT -  Cut and Come Again

CNUT -  The Man Who Did It Doggy Fashion

CNUT -  The Man From Next Week

CNUT -  Cabal of Silence

CNUT -  Deadly Premise

CNUT -  Deadly Relations

CNUT -  Hide the Lady

CNUT -  Hidden Agenda

OTHER NOVELS:

The Devil Deals Death 

The Makepeace Manifesto

‘Y’ Oh ‘Y’;  The Thursday Syndrome

The Last Laugh;  Panic

The Sinister Side of the Moon

Hell and High Water

Hardrada’s Hoard

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 609.42

CHAPTER ONE

Constable Erik Eriksen yawned so hard that it felt as if his jaw was about to get stuck wide open.

The evening shift could be far more tiring than the night shift. No one slept before coming on duty at six in the evening, unlike those who had to work from midnight until eight in the morning, when a nap before coming on duty was a necessity.

He still had fifty-three minutes to go before his relief arrived, and since it was Kjell Sturmen, he knew it would not be an early changeover.

If past experience was anything to go by, Kjell would come in a few seconds before twelve, smelling of strong alcohol and a woman’s perfume. He was quite a lad.

Erik was bored. The switchboard had been particularly quiet that evening - the most exciting thing being the report of a stolen pedigree dog at ten to nine, and he expected his shift to end that way, but when the phone rang at nine minutes past eleven, that changed dramatically.

Trying not to show his lack of enthusiasm, he answered with the usual, ‘Police headquarters. How can I help you?’

A desperately frightened woman’s voice cried, ‘Karen is dying – murdered...ahhhhh...’

Suddenly wide awake, Erik urged, ‘Please, tell me more. What is your address? Where are you? What is your name? Hello.....hello.....are you still there? Hello....hello...’

He continued to try to get the woman to say more, but after about forty seconds, he heard the change in the tone that told him the distant receiver had been replaced on the cradle. He could see from the caller display that the call had been on a landline, and had been terminated.

He dialled the number, but heard the ‘engaged’ tone, and guessed that the phone had been taken off the hook.

Following protocol, he called the Serious Crimes Division, and asked to speak to the senior detective on duty.

That was DI Sigurd Kvindstrom, and he stifled a groan of disappointment as he listened to Erik’s report.

He was not going to be able to leave off at midnight.

He took the few details from Erik, tried calling the number himself, with the same result that the cop on the switchboard had, and then, sighing with the knowledge of what it would entail, he called Sheriff Cnut’s home number.

Cnut was in the bathroom, cleaning his teeth, before going to bed.

Ilse was already in bed, but leant out and picked up the phone from the bedside table.

She recognised the caller identification, and knew who was on evening duty, so said, ‘Good evening, Sigurd. Are we just about to make Cnut’s day?’

Sigurd murmured, ‘I’m afraid so, ma’am.’

‘Just a minute then.’

She put her hand over the phone, and shouted, ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.’

Cnut opened the door, toothpaste on his lips, and toothbrush in hand.

He saw the phone in her hand and shook his head in disgust.

He held up his hand, went back to the sink, where he washed and wiped his face, and then strode back to the bedside and took the phone from her.

‘What is it, Sigurd?’

‘A strange call, sir. A distraught woman’s voice saying someone called Karen has been murdered, and then a sound as if she – the caller that is, was being attacked.’

‘Do we have an address?’

‘No, sir. Only a telephone number.

‘Which is?’

Kvindstrom dictated it, and Cnut wrote it down.

Then he put the phone on speaker, and ordered, ‘Play me the recording – five times, please.’ He switched his cell phone on, to record the call, and held it near the house phone.

He and Ilse listened, and after the fifth time it was played, he thanked Sigurd and told him, ‘Follow the usual procedures with the white boards. We’ll be leaving home in just a couple of minutes, so please stay in the bullpen until we get there.’

He closed that call, and then speed-dialled Ari Blank’s number.

The SOCO chief sounded bright and cheerful when he answered with, ‘Glad I stayed up late, Cnut – otherwise you’d have got me out of bed, wouldn’t you? What have you got?’

‘We don’t really know, Ari, but we do know we’ll need your services. Listen to this...’

He played the recording.

Ari commented, ‘I see what you mean, and agree with you. What’s the plan?’

‘Well, we obviously can’t leave it till the morning. We’re heading to the office, so that I can use the official computer to find out where that call came from, and then we’ll head to wherever that is, and see what we can find out.’

‘I’ll meet you there, and on the way I’ll roust out a couple of my team.’

I’ll be flavour of the month yet again.

Cnut and Ilse threw on the same clothes they had worn the previous day, hurried downstairs, where an excited black Labrador stood, wagging his tail furiously at the thought of an unexpected excursion.

Ilse shook her head, ‘Sorry, pal. We’ll have to leave you out in the garden. We could be hours.’

At that time of night, there was little traffic, and twelve minutes later, they entered the bullpen.

Sigurd rose from his seat and came up to them.

He said, ‘I’ve tried to find out where that call came from, but it’s unlisted.’

Cnut nodded, ‘So is ours. As you probably know, one can pay to have one’s number privatised – that’s what they call it anyway. Well, poor old Dag is going to lose some sleep.’

He saw Ilse shaking her head, but told her, ‘He’s a cop, and cops are on duty twenty-four/seven.’

Dag – the young man who was their IT expert - answered the phone immediately, and that told Cnut that he was not in bed.

He quickly told him what he needed, and Dag said, ‘I’ll call back in a couple of minutes, sir.’

It was, in fact, only ninety-three seconds later when Cnut’s phone rang again.

Dag said, ‘The phone is listed to an estate, called "Haraldsen", sir. No location given.’

‘Thank you, Dag. Good night.’

‘Good night to you, sir.’

Cnut murmured, ‘Someone is living in the past.’

He sat down at the nearest computer, and typed in the name of the estate.

What came up intrigued him, and he said, ‘Just have a look at this.’

The picture of the house had astonished him, and Ilse was equally impressed.

She said, ‘That place is at least twenty times larger than this building.’

‘It must have a couple of dozen bedrooms.’

She shook her head, ‘More like sixty. That isn’t a mansion – it’s a palace.’

And it’s in Greater Oslo. Why haven’t I heard of it?’

‘Read the blurb, and you’ll know why.’

It read: The Haraldsen estate is presently owned by Harald Haraldsen, 72, who claims he can trace his ancestry directly back to Harald Sigurδsen – Harald of Norway, sometimes given the epithet Hardrada, who was king of Norway from 1046 to 1066. The house has eighty-seven rooms, and was built by the present incumbent’s great-great-great grandfather, in 1793. The family business has always been shipping, originally the carrying of slaves, and their shipping line, historically known as the Hardrada Line, changed it’s name to the Ragnar Line in 1951, shortly after the early release of the then head of the family, also called Harald, from prison, to which he had been sentenced to twenty years for his war crimes as a Quisling, working with the Germans, and directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of his countrymen. The house, called Haraldshjem, sits in the centre of the family estate, which comprises of over fourteen thousand hectares, in which there are five villages, called Olafsby, Egelsby, Rollosby, Hasteinsby, and Cnutsby, a church, a factory, whose history includes the making of bows, lances, pikes, swords and firearms, including canon, and later automatic weapons for the Norwegian forces. The factory still produces munitions, but now also produces country crafts, renowned all over the world for their quality. Many of the villagers are employed in that factory. Harald Haraldsen’s personal fortune was estimated in December 2020 at forty-three billion kroner.

Cnut looked up at Ilse, chuckled and murmured, ‘One of those villages had to be named after me, didn’t it? What’s your initial impression?’

She shrugged, and said, ‘In a word – feudal, but with money like that, this Haraldsen could do almost anything he wanted. Forty-three billion kroner must be almost four billion dollars, right?’

He nodded, ‘Right, and I agree that it does sound feudal, but we might be quite wrong. Anyway, it’s seventy-odd kilometres from here, at the very outskirts of Greater Oslo. Do we announce our visit, or not?’

‘I’d say not. Whoever stopped that woman who telephoned from speaking, and possibly killed her, will be aware that we will have probably traced the call, and will be visiting, but even so, if we go now, we might catch them on the hop.’

‘That house must have more than one telephone, though probably only one landline, either with its own switchboard, or with a number of extensions. Sorry, I’ll have to call Dag again.’

As he spoke, his cell phone played the intro to Beethoven’s Fifth, and he saw that the caller was Dag.

He laughed, and said, ‘Are you a mind reader, Dag?’

The young IT expert answered, ‘No, sir. I merely anticipated your next question, and the answer is that that number is linked to fourteen extensions – eight of the bedrooms, servants’ living quarters, butler, kitchens, rear entrance, front entrance, and shooting lodge.’

Cnut shook his head, ‘Well done, Dag, but unfortunately that doesn’t help us much.’

‘With what, sir?’

‘Of course, you don’t know about it. Just after eleven the switchboard received a call from the number I gave you, and a woman’s voice said that another woman had been murdered, and then made a sound as if she too had been attacked.’

‘But surely, sir, that narrows the field down a lot, doesn’t it?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, at that time of the evening, I would imagine that the butler would have finished his duties for the day, and would be in his room, so the call is unlikely to have come from there.’

Cnut caught on quickly, ‘And there would no doubt have been several servants in their quarters at that time. Almost certainly, it would not have come from the shooting lodge, although it has to remain a possibility. If, as seems to me likely, it was a servant girl who made the call, and not a female member of the family - if there is a family, the call will not have come from one of the bedrooms, or the front entrance, which a servant would not be allowed to use or be near, so we are left with the kitchens and the rear entrance. I think the latter is the most likely.’

‘I agree, sir.’

‘Great stuff. Thank you, Dag.’

Cnut looked across at Ilse, his eyebrows raised in question, and she murmured, ‘I concur.’

Just at that moment, Ari came into the bullpen, accompanied by two of his team, a man and a woman, both of whom they knew well, and nods of acknowledgement were exchanged all round.

Cnut explained what they knew and his intentions to Ari and his team members, and ended with, ‘We’ll have the element of surprise, and maybe catch the murderer with his or her pants down.’

He chuckled, seeing Ilse’s expression, and said, ‘All right – if it’s a woman, I won’t look.’

That made them all laugh.

He said, ‘We’ll wait until we enter the grounds, and then switch on sirens and lights, keeping them going when we pull up at the front of the house. I want to give them all a rude awakening.’

Ari chuckled, ‘You are not going to be flavour of the month with that Harald character, and he may have friends in high places.’

Cnut shrugged, ‘So be it. Ilse and I keep talking about becoming private eyes. Think of the extra money we’d earn.’

‘From watching errant husbands and wives naked, and at it with their amours?’

‘If that’s what it takes.’

‘No way – you’d miss the murders.’

‘Yes, you’re