Division of murder investigations between the Kriminalamt and the Morddezernat

The division of murder investigations between the Norwegian Criminal Investigation Service Kriminalamt and Morddezernat is a disputed institutional arrangement, not simply a matter of office boundaries. As the Norwegian Ministry of Justice considers centralizing murder investigations, Gunnar Hagen and Mikael Bellman are asked to advise on the future system. Their exchange reveals how the division bears on investigative authority, the police force’s public standing, and the ambitions of its senior officers.

The existing arrangement

The novel refers to a current division of murder investigations but does not set out a comprehensive formal rulebook or specify every case assigned to each unit. What it does establish is that investigations can continue both in Bryn and at police headquarters. Hagen describes the existing arrangement as one under which murder investigations proceed in those separate locations, while the Ministry considers whether responsibility and resources should instead be gathered in one place.

The arrangement is therefore shown at a moment of possible change. It is not presented as a settled technical detail: the question of where murder investigations belong has reached the level of ministerial review, and the answer could reorganize the work of the police. The evidence leaves the precise jurisdictional boundaries unspecified, but makes clear that the division has practical consequences for where investigations are conducted and who may direct them.

Investigations under the arrangement

A meeting chaired by Bellman illustrates the active, contested work of a murder investigation. He tells those present that the police cannot exclude the possibility that Tony Leike had an accomplice who committed at least two murders. Leike, Bellman explains, has alibis for the deaths of Borgny Stem-Myhre and Charlotte Lolles: he was attending board meetings at the relevant times, with several witnesses able to confirm his presence. The meeting shows the challenge of handling connected murders when evidence points toward more than one possible perpetrator, although it does not identify which unit has formal responsibility for each case.

Bellman also tries to determine who participates in that investigative discussion. He asks Harry Hole and Björn Holm to leave further inquiries to those who are up to date, before continuing with the possibility of an accomplice. This moment gives the jurisdictional debate an operational counterpart: murder investigations involve control not only over institutional responsibility but also over who is considered informed enough to take part. The scene does not establish that this exchange results from a particular rule assigning the case to one unit; it does show authority being asserted in the course of a live investigation.

Review and the proposed central unit

Hagen tells Bellman that he has been summoned to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice for a meeting at the end of the following month. The meeting concerns reorganization, staff reductions, and the transfer of responsibility for murder cases. Hagen and Bellman have both been asked to submit proposals for the future handling of such cases, and the deadline is approaching. Bellman recognizes the subject of the meeting, but initially does not understand why Hagen’s remark about everything coming to light matters to their discussion.

Hagen raises the prospect that murder-investigation resources might be concentrated in a single place. He says the Ministry could decide on centralization regardless of what the two officers recommend. He also acknowledges that, if offered leadership of such a unit, he would consider it. His stated preference, however, is that the current arrangement continue, with investigations proceeding both in Bryn and at headquarters. He argues that the existing system generally brings murderers to justice. This is Hagen’s position in a policy dispute, not proof that centralization has been rejected or that the present division is guaranteed to remain.

Bellman is more skeptical about the consultation. He suggests that the Ministry may be inviting their opinions merely to keep the peace, rather than intending to give them much weight. That suspicion sharpens the stakes: both officers are being asked to evaluate a system in which they hold senior positions, while a central unit could alter the distribution of responsibility and confer a powerful new post.

Institutional interest and personal leverage

Hagen frames his position partly as a defense of the police. He says the most important thing is to spare the force another public scandal and to protect the integrity of ordinary officers from being called into question. That argument connects the structural decision to the risk that misconduct by senior figures could damage confidence in the wider organization.

He then points to Bellman’s own past conduct. Hagen says he knows how to assess the prospect of a new centralized murder-investigation unit being led by an officer who has previously used his position to protect his current wife from arrest for drug smuggling, despite witnesses who had unmistakably identified her. The allegation turns the consultation into a personal confrontation: Bellman’s potential authority over a new unit is weighed against the way he has exercised authority before. Hagen’s appeal to institutional integrity is thus accompanied by leverage over Bellman, not offered as a detached administrative principle.

Bellman asks for time to think. The exchange establishes no final agreement between them and does not settle the future jurisdictional arrangement. Instead, Hagen makes his support for the status quo conditional on the other side sharing his assessment, while drawing attention to a vulnerability that could affect Bellman’s position in any reorganization.

Significance

The division’s importance lies in the overlap between case responsibility and police politics. A central unit might gather resources and place murder investigations under one leader; preserving the current arrangement would retain work in both Bryn and at headquarters. The novel supplies no final policy decision, so the issue remains open at the end of the discussion.

The debate also refuses to separate institutional design from the conduct of the people who would administer it. Hagen invokes the ordinary officers whose integrity could suffer from scandal, yet uses Bellman’s past to pressure him during a discussion about leadership and jurisdiction. The result is a policy question in which public accountability, operational authority, and personal ambition are inseparable: the structure for investigating murder is itself a contest over who can be trusted to hold power.