Adele Vetlesen’s murder is pieced together from the recovery of her body at Lyseren Lake and the clues linking its disposal to the later killing of Marit Olsen. The case turns on a reversal in Harry Hole’s reasoning: the rope was not acquired to kill Marit, but used first to dispose of Adele’s body, while a separate revelation overturns the assumption that Adele was raped at Hävasshütte.

Background and discovery

The murder enters the investigation amid a wider pattern whose connection the police have not yet recognized. In the killer’s account, photographs of victims show them before their deaths, smiling and apparently secure in the lives ahead of them. The narrator presents these images as part of a private collection, while anticipating that the police will soon connect the murders. This parallel voice gives Adele’s case a place in the larger pattern without, at this point, supplying a complete account of her death.

Adele’s body is recovered from Lyseren Lake. Mikael Bellman arrives by helicopter, examines the body on a stretcher, and looks down toward the people gathered between the building and the lake. Among them are Kaja Solness, Beate Lønn, and Harry, who is speaking with the local police officer Skai. Bellman treats the location as his crime scene; Harry disputes that characterization, saying he is searching for missing people and that they appear to have found the person they sought. The exchange establishes the competing purposes at Lyseren: Bellman is pursuing a murder investigation, while Harry is following the disappearance that has brought him back to the lake.

Reconstructing the disposal

Harry’s explanation begins with a question that had troubled him: why would a killer travel to a remote, disused ropeworks merely to obtain rope, especially rope that could be traced back to its source? He realizes that the journey was not made for the rope’s later use in Marit Olsen’s murder. The killer needed the site for another purpose, took the rope there, and carried the remainder home. Having it on hand later made it available for Marit’s killing. The same object therefore connects two crimes, but not in the order Harry had first assumed: it served in Adele’s disposal before it became a weapon against Marit.

Harry’s reconstruction identifies the lake’s deep side as the place where Adele’s body was submerged. Her trousers had been filled with stones, and the waistband and legs tied closed before the body was thrown into the water. The method makes the lake itself part of the disposal plan: the stones were used to weigh the clothing and body down. Skai had previously pointed out the deep side of the lake, a detail Harry now recognizes as an important clue rather than incidental local knowledge.

The medical evidence supports Harry’s distinction between killing Adele and disposing of her body. He expects the autopsy to show that she had a serious wound to the throat and no water in her lungs, which would indicate that she was already dead before entering the lake. The available account presents this as Harry’s prediction of the post-mortem result, rather than as a confirmed finding. It nevertheless changes the proposed sequence: the water concealed the body; it was not necessarily the cause of death.

Links to the other murders

Adele’s case is connected to the murders of Charlotte Lolles and Borgny Stem-Myhre through the discovery of Ketanomin in all three victims. Beate Lønn identifies the drug as a fast-acting, inexpensive copy of Ketalar, used for anesthesia while allowing patients to breathe on their own. It had been banned in Norway and the European Union during the 1990s because of side effects and was then found mainly in developing countries. The criminal investigation service had pursued it as a major lead for a time but without a result. Its recurrence links the victims, but the evidence cited here does not establish who supplied or administered it.

The connection between Adele and Marit is more material and specific: the rope taken to Lyseren, used in Adele’s disposal, was later used to kill Marit. This sequence turns a seemingly puzzling journey into evidence of two linked acts rather than a single-purpose trip. It also demonstrates the limits of reading a clue only through the crime in which it is first noticed; the rope’s origin matters because it reveals where Adele’s body was handled and why the killer went there.

Reversal and significance

The investigation’s understanding of Adele’s experience changes again when Harry learns that Tony Leike had been believed to have raped her at Hävasshütte. Harry had not expected this account and had already found the proposed assault difficult to reconcile with what he knew of Leike. He then recognizes that it was not a rape, and that this fact was the motive. The revelation overturns the apparent explanation rather than simply adding another detail to it; the account provided here does not specify the full motive or establish further circumstances, so the conclusion remains bounded by Harry’s recognition.

The case is thus disclosed in stages: the lake and weighted clothing explain how the body was hidden; the rope explains the killer’s journey and links Adele’s disposal to Marit’s murder; the recurring drug connects Adele with Charlotte and Borgny; and the final realization revises the assumed sexual motive. The order of disclosure matters. Readers first encounter a killer who treats murder as part of a larger pattern, while Harry’s inquiry reconstructs the practical sequence from evidence at Lyseren. Adele’s murder becomes legible not through a single decisive clue but through the revision of several earlier interpretations.