Aftenposten

Aftenposten is a newspaper whose coverage repeatedly turns the murder investigation into public information—and, in turn, makes that information part of the investigation itself. Its online reporting names Harry Hole as the case’s leader, its stories reach both potential witnesses and people connected to the crimes, and its headlines give the police’s changing account a public life of its own. Through Roger Gjendem, the paper also becomes a base for investigative journalism directed at Mikael Bellman.

Reporting at the crime scene

Aftenposten enters the investigation first as a presence in the dark. After a boat brings Harry Hole, Kaja Solness, and Beate Lonn back to the parking area, a flash goes off beneath the trees. Roger Gjendem calls out to Harry and asks whether he has found a young woman, what her name is, and how certain he is that the case connects to the other murders. The questioning arrives before the discovery has been publicly established as a murder: Harry insists that it is still a missing-person case and says only that a woman has been found who may be the missing person. He declines to identify her and directs questions about the suspected series to the Kriminalamt. The exchange sets a boundary between what the police can confirm and what the press is already trying to learn.

That boundary soon becomes harder to maintain. In the car, Kaja tells Harry that the body discovery is already in Aftenposten’s online edition. The article includes a large photograph of Harry, his full name, and his designation as investigation leader, and links the discovery to the other murders. The publication makes Harry personally visible at the same moment that it gives the developing case a public interpretation. His brief, unconcerned response does not undo that change: readers now have both an identifiable officer to associate with the investigation and a narrative connecting the latest find to the earlier killings.

Readers, information, and the investigation

The paper’s online reach has consequences beyond publicity. A message later arrives on Harry’s secret phone number from someone who has read Aftenposten’s report identifying him as the investigation leader. The sender says Elias Skog spoke before he was glued into a bathtub, a detail not made public. Harry recognizes that this is not an ordinary speculative tip: the message reveals knowledge of a concealed crime-scene fact, while its reference to the newspaper shows how the article has helped direct a source toward him. Aftenposten is not simply reporting what the investigation has found; its coverage helps create a channel through which information can return to the investigator.

The paper also reaches people who may have relevant personal connections. Tony Leike says he read about the case in Aftenposten over breakfast and that the news almost stuck in his throat. His reaction precedes his request to speak privately with Harry. The scene gives the newspaper’s report a particular effect: for Leike, it is not distant coverage but news that touches something he knows and prompts him to approach the police.

The novel distinguishes this effect from the police’s direct public appeals. Mikael Bellman’s televised request for people who were at Hävasshütte on the relevant night to contact the police is broadcast on television, not identified as an Aftenposten report. At the same time, Harry later asks Katrine Bratt to use a search system to identify people who visited news pages carrying stories about the murders, on the premise that an unusually intensive reader might stand out. The newspapers’ coverage thus belongs to a wider information environment that the investigators can examine as well as use.

Headlines and the public record

Aftenposten’s coverage follows the case beyond the initial discovery. After the avalanche at Hävasshütte, a copy of the paper lies on the bedside table beside Kaja Solness. Its front-page story describes the disaster and cites Mikael Bellman calling Jussi Kolkka’s death a great loss, while also saying that the witness Kolkka had been protecting was rescued and was safe. The newspaper presents the official account of the catastrophe in a compact public form: the death, the protection of a witness, and the survivor’s safety appear together, although Harry and Kaja are still considering the evidence that the avalanche was set off with dynamite.

Later, a front-page headline announces the arrest of Der Kavalier. Its timing is not quite what the headline suggests: the arrest took place in the evening, but Skai sent the press release only after midnight, when television’s final news bulletin had already aired and newspaper deadlines were close. The release says that Der Kavalier was arrested after an intensive investigation by the local police, in front of the old community hall in Ytre Enebakk. A delay in communication therefore shapes the apparent chronology of the public report. When Mikael Bellman confronts Harry over the headline, Harry answers by stressing the substance of the news: one of the worst murderers in Norwegian criminal history is behind bars.

Roger Gjendem and investigative journalism

Roger Gjendem’s work for Aftenposten extends beyond asking Harry for comment. He later introduces himself to Truls Berntsen as a reporter for the paper, clarifies that he is not calling about Jussi Kolkka, and pursues information about Bellman. After hearing a lead from Bent Nordbo, Roger spends much of a day and part of the night looking into Bellman. The available rumor about Bellman is limited, so Roger turns to a group of unreliable informants he has cultivated over the years, people willing to trade information for alcohol or heroin.

Three of those informants live in Manglerud and grew up there. Their shared background gives Roger a narrow but useful route into Bellman’s past: all three remember him, both as a particularly unpleasant police officer in Stovner and for pursuing Ulla Swart while her boyfriend Julie was in prison. They recount that Julie’s suspended sentence was revoked after someone revealed he had stolen petrol in Mortensrud, and that, after serving his sentence, he left prison intending to confront Bellman. Two masked men were waiting in a garage when Julie went to retrieve his motorcycle; they beat him with iron bars and threatened further violence if he went near Bellman or Ulla. The account is presented as rumor gathered through Roger’s sources, not as a settled finding. It nevertheless shows the paper’s reporter building a line of inquiry outside the official murder investigation.

Publicity as part of the plot

Aftenposten’s recurring role is to move information across the boundary between the police, their sources, and the public. Its coverage identifies Harry, connects a discovery to the murder series, prompts a knowledgeable reader to contact him, and gives Bellman’s statements and the arrest an official public frame. Roger’s reporting, meanwhile, tests that public image against local memories and precarious informants. The paper is therefore both a record of what the investigation makes public and an active part of the story’s circulation of knowledge: what appears in print can attract witnesses, expose investigators, shape timing, and open a separate path toward questions the police have not resolved.