Kadok Factory, Altman's Workplace

Kadok Factory, Altman's Workplace is both a workplace and a repository of evidence in Sigurd Altman’s account: its sewing room held the images and letters through which he documented his effort to manipulate Tony Leike, while a fire there destroyed photographs of Tony and Adele Vetlesen.

The Sewing Room Display

Altman describes hanging photographs of the victims on the wall of the factory’s sewing room, alongside copies of letters he had written in the victims’ names. The display gathered the materials of his scheme in one place: the images represented those killed, while the copied letters recorded the threats he had manufactured to provoke Tony.

A Workplace Turned into an Archive

The sewing-room wall served as Altman’s private record of the correspondence and murders. Each time Tony killed someone, Altman sent him another letter, purportedly from a different person who claimed to know about the earlier killings and demanded more money for silence. The factory thus became associated not only with Altman’s work but with the physical traces of his escalating deception.

Fire and the Loss of Photographs

Altman says that photographs of Adele Vetlesen and Tony were destroyed in a fire at Kadok Factory. Their destruction removes those particular images from the chain of evidence described in the scene. When Harry Hole is blamed for the loss, the factory’s fire emerges as a consequence that complicates the investigation’s documentary record.