The Boy in the Headlights

by Samuel Bjork

  ‘The special unit is up and running again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it the girl they found in the lake?’

  Munch nodded as the waiter brought his order.

  ‘Vivian Berg. A ballet dancer. They found her all dressed up. A little boy and his father out fishing.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘Lake Svarttjønn. It’s up near Vassfaret. The lake is high up in the mountains – strange scenario.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Munch attacked his prawn sandwich and spoke with food in his mouth.

  ‘She disappeared from her flat on Thursday and was found in a lake halfway up a mountain on Saturday, four days ago, wearing a ballet costume. What’s not weird about that?’

  He put his finger on the file between them. ‘It’s all in there.’

  ‘I know what you’re doing, Holger, but I’ve made up my mind.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘What do you mean by “all dressed up”?’

  ‘Her hair had been put up. She was wearing a dance costume with one of those skirts – a tutu. White tights. And pointe shoes.’

  ‘Pointe shoes? She was wearing them?’

  Munch nodded.

  ‘That is strange.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’

  ‘How far is the road from the lake?’

  ‘About a forty-five-minute walk through quite steep terrain.’

  ‘She was carried all that way?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Munch said with a shrug.

  He looked at her across his sandwich, and she could see it in his eyes now.

  ‘What?’ she said, and tilted her head.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What are you not telling me?’

  Munch looked at her gravely, then wiped his mouth with a napkin.

  ‘I think she walked,’ he said at length.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The soles of her pointe shoes were ripped and torn. I think she must have walked all that way.’

  ‘You’re saying she took her own life?’

  ‘No, definitely not. She was killed with a needle straight into her heart.’

  ‘A syringe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was in it?’

  ‘Ethylene glycol.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘Antifreeze.’

  ‘God Almighty …’

  ‘Exactly. It’s lethal and you can buy it at any petrol station.’

  ‘So what makes you think she didn’t walk up to the lake and inject herself?’

  ‘Because of the pain,’ Munch said, leaning back in his chair. ‘Is that how you would have done it?’

  A moment’s thoughtlessness, and he realized it immediately.

  Exactly one year to the day.

  A table covered with colourful pills.

  Mia alone on an island off the coast of Trøndelag.

  Come, Mia, come.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Munch leaned towards her again. ‘I obviously didn’t mean to—’

  ‘That’s quite all right, Holger,’ Mia said, holding up her hand.

  ‘How are you, by the way?’ Munch went on, still looking mortified. ‘I completely forgot to ask. Sorry. You know what it’s like.’

  ‘Of course, Holger. I understand. And I’m doing well. Really well, in fact.’

  She picked up the bottle of mineral water, waved it and took a symbolic sip.

  ‘Good.’ Munch nodded. ‘You look great – really great – by the way, if I may say so. It’s a long time since I’ve last seen you so, how shall I put it—?’

  ‘Sober?’ Mia smiled.

  Munch chuckled.

  ‘That wasn’t quite the word I was looking for, but yes, why not? How long has it been now?’

  ‘Four months.’

  ‘Wow, congratulations.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have to say that.’ Mia sighed. ‘I’ve been a terrible police officer, I really am very sorry.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ Munch snorted and shook his head. ‘Without you, who knows what would have happened? I’m frightened to even think about it. You solve cases. And I don’t give a damn what you need to consume in order to do it. But, nevertheless, it’s good to see you now, so … with it.’

  Mia smiled. She could feel that he really meant it.

  ‘How is she doing?’

  ‘Miriam? Better every day. She’s strong. She’s going to make it. She sends her love, by the way. You ought to visit her soon.’

  ‘I’ll try to before I leave.’

  Munch smiled warmly and stuck his hand into the pocket of his coat.

  ‘Will you keep me company while I have a cigarette?’

  Mia smiled and followed him outside under the heating lamps in the back garden. It might be spring in Oslo, but it still wasn’t very warm. She hugged herself while Munch lit his cigarette, and his expression darkened again.

  Mia pressed her lips together and mulled it over.

  A young woman in a ballet costume.

  Left on the shores of a mountain lake.

  A syringe filled with antifreeze.

  ‘We found several bizarre items at the crime scene.’ Munch coughed and gave her that look she had seen so many times before.

  There’s something strange here, Mia.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure where to start.’ Munch paused. ‘He had set up a camera on a tripod.’

  ‘Facing the body?’

  Munch nodded gravely and took a deep drag on his cigarette.

  ‘Did it contain any pictures?’

  ‘No, it was empty. There was a slot for a memory card, but if there was one in it, he had taken it with him.’

  ‘Why “he”? You know the killer is male?’

  ‘Footprints in the ground. Size 43.’

  ‘She had been left at the water’s edge?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the camera was pointing directly at her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How strange,’ Mia mumbled to herself.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I’m not sure if this is relevant, but we found a page from a children’s book a short distance away.’

  ‘Which book?’

  ‘Astrid Lindgren. The Brothers Lionheart. So will you do me a favour and take a look at the file? It would mean a lot to me.’

  Munch stubbed out his cigarette.

  ‘Would you be willing to give me seven days?’ he ventured.

  ‘I don’t know, Holger.’

  ‘A week? That’s all.’

  Chapter 6

  Munch felt a stab of guilt as he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and glanced through the window. A holiday. Getting away from it all, the past and the recent past. God knows there were few people who deserved a holiday more than Mia, but it was just too bad: he needed her now. A case for Mia. He had thought so the moment he saw the photos from the crime scene. Holger Munch had worked as a homicide investigator for almost thirty years, and cases like this one were rare. Callous. Calculated. Planned. As if someone had enjoyed every second. Murder. Killing. To normal people it sounded dreadful, of course, and so it was for everyone involved, but usually the why was straightforward. The motives were clear. Jealousy. Hatred. Revenge. Often in combination with too much alcohol or drugs. Human nature. Not hard to explain. Munch could count on one hand the number of cases where he couldn’t immediately see what had happened and identify the killer from a list of obvious suspects. It might take time, but his first hunch was usually right. But this? He shook his head slightly and took another drag on his cigarette as his mobile vibrated in his coat pocket.

  ‘It’s Anette. Is now a good time?’

  ‘Yes, sure, go on.’

  ‘I’ve finally managed to track down someone at Ullevål Hospital, and it would appear that Karoline Berg is ready to be interviewed now.’

  ‘Good. Have they given us a time?
’

  ‘Just let me know when you can get to the hospital and I’ll speak to the duty nurse.’

  ‘And what about Vivian Berg’s boss at the ballet?’

  ‘Her name is Christiane Spidsøe,’ Goli said. ‘She’s working at the Opera today. She seems distraught but will see you at your convenience.’

  ‘What do we know about the car?’

  Kripos had found a grey Mercedes abandoned on the roadside near what looked like the start of a footpath. Crime-scene technicians had found a necklace on the floor under the passenger seat. Vivian Berg’s mother had confirmed that it belonged to her daughter. Very strange, all of it. So the killer had driven her there? And she had walked the rest of the way herself? Why had someone left the car doors open? And why leave the car behind in such a remote location?

  ‘The Mercedes was reported stolen on Wednesday by a lawyer called Thomas Lorentzen.’

  ‘Does he have a record?’

  ‘Not as far as I can see, but I’ve asked Grønlie to make a few calls. I don’t trust these new databases.’

  ‘OK, good.’ Munch could see Mia shift her position by the table inside.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ Goli wanted to know.

  ‘She’s looking at the pictures as we speak.’

  ‘Good. I’ve told the pathologist that you’ll be stopping by. Do you want to go there first?’

  ‘I’ll do it sometime later today. Did you speak to Ernst Hugo Vik directly?’

  ‘No, I believe he has retired. It’s a woman now. Lillian Lund.’

  ‘OK. I think we’ll go and see Karoline Berg first, if she’s ready to talk to us now.’

  ‘Will you be taking Mia?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Good luck. I’ll call you if anything else turns up,’ Goli said, and rang off.

  Munch threw his cigarette butt down on the tarmac and went back inside the pub. He cleared his throat and slipped quietly into the chair opposite Mia.

  ‘So what do you think?’

  He had seen this look often. Her bright blue eyes might be aimed at him, but they were miles away.

  ‘I think my holiday has just been cancelled,’ Mia said, raking a hand through her raven-black hair.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘What are your thoughts?’ Munch put his hand tentatively on the file between them.

  ‘Something is missing.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We can’t see what the camera saw. Didn’t someone take a photo from that angle?’

  She flicked through the crime-scene photographs and looked up at him, slightly less remote now.

  ‘Not if it’s not included in that file.’

  ‘I …’ Mia grew distant again.

  Munch didn’t say anything. He just let her disappear. The special unit with or without Mia Krüger? It was like the difference between night and day. She could have as much time as she needed.

  ‘I’m not sure why he picked this location,’ she said at length, looking up at him again.

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘He wanted to be alone with her first – do you think that was it?’

  ‘What do you mean by “first”?’

  She tilted her head a little and looked at him.

  Munch had seen this before too, many times, this gaze which said: Do you not see what I’m seeing?

  ‘He set up the camera. He left her lying in the water without trying to cover her up.’

  ‘Yes …?’

  ‘He wanted us to find her,’ Mia said, reaching for something on the table and seeming almost surprised to find it wasn’t there.

  A drink.

  Whenever Munch had seen Mia study pictures before, she had always had a bottle nearby and it seemed for a moment as if her body didn’t understand that this was no longer the case.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Mia took a sip of her mineral water.

  ‘I don’t know. Talk me through it.’

  ‘They always show signs of regret, don’t they? They cover the body to hide from themselves what they’ve done – that was what you taught me, wasn’t it? Oh, hell …’

  Mia withdrew into herself once more.

  ‘He wanted time alone with her.’

  Munch said nothing.

  ‘That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’ Mia continued with eyes which were again far away, the words soft between her lips. ‘You and her. Alone up there in the forest. You take her there. How did you get her there? Did you know her? Did you walk up there together? Did she trust you?’

  ‘What do you make of the book?’ Munch asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mia sounded dazed.

  ‘The page from the children’s book? Is it relevant?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Mia opened the file and turned a photograph towards him.

  ‘Do you see it?’

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘She disappeared on Thursday?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It rained last week; this week it didn’t. The page hasn’t been lying there long. The humidity we can see here must have come from the ground. He left it for us to find.’

  Mia leaned back in her chair and ran her hand through her hair again.

  ‘The Brothers Lionheart. What do you think that means?’

  ‘It’s too soon to say,’ Mia said.

  ‘So are you in?’

  ‘Shortest holiday ever,’ Mia mumbled, giving him a vaguely resigned smile. ‘You said something about her mother?’

  ‘Flew down from Bodø to see her dance. Couldn’t find her and contacted the police.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘She’s in shock. Admitted to Ullevål Hospital.’

  ‘But we can talk to her?’

  ‘I’ve just been given the go-ahead.’

  ‘Give me two minutes,’ Mia said, and disappeared off towards the Ladies.

  Chapter 7

  Police officer Jon Larsen, better known as Curry, had a hangover so severe that he struggled to see through the windscreen. He took a gulp from the water bottle between his legs, narrowed his eyes and couldn’t make up his mind whether to be pleased about today’s assignment. Surveillance. Not much chance of any action. He glanced up at the flat in Kyrre Greppsgate. They were watching Lotte, a seventeen-year-old junkie. Another wretch at the bottom of the drug food chain and yet for some reason they were keeping an eye on her. It was said that she might lead them to someone higher up. He hadn’t paid much attention at the briefing. Keeping his eyes open and his breakfast down had kept him fully occupied. Perhaps he should have picked another pub, but the outcome would have been the same. Beer and whisky. A few rounds of pool. More beer. More whisky. And once again he had woken up in the same bed with a young face on the other pillow and with the hangover from hell.

  Luna. What the hell sort of name was that? She was twenty-one years old with dreadlocks and a pierced nose. A tattoo of some figure on her arm that Curry had never heard of. Luna. Who in God’s name named their kid that? The observation wasn’t lost on him; it was how he thought of her. A kid. A child. OK, no, she wasn’t a child, but come on, she was fourteen years his junior and a bartender. No, it couldn’t go on. He had to do something.

  He tried to get his head to work, come up with some sort of plan, but he hadn’t got very far when the car door was opened and his partner slipped into the seat next to him. Allan Dahl, his opposite in so many ways. Tall and gangly with a moustache he had grown since the last time Curry was assigned to the Drugs Squad and which had now come back into fashion without his partner seeming to care very much.

  ‘Anything happening?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Curry mumbled.

  ‘There aren’t any other exits from the block, are there?’

  ‘No, not unless they’ve built one since the last time we checked.’

  Dahl took the coffee from the take-out tray without reacting to Curry’s obviou
s sarcasm.

  ‘Mocha latte for me, black for you, as usual. Sorry it took such a long time. I had to walk all the way down to Kaffegutta in Vogtsgate to get something decent.’

  Curry sipped the coffee but, to be honest, it tasted no different to what they served everywhere else.

  ‘So,’ Dahl said, turning to him with eager eyes. ‘I met your mate last night. I hear she’s going travelling?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The super-detective. She came to the office to get herself a new passport not long ago. Has she got a job abroad?’

  Curry took another sip of his coffee and slowly began to realize who his partner was talking about.

  Mia Krüger.

  He shook his head very carefully. The super-detective? Really? He had heard her referred to by many strange names, but ‘super-detective’ was a first; he hadn’t heard that one before. There had always been some animosity among his colleagues in the force. Membership of Munch’s team was highly prestigious and those who weren’t picked for it had a tendency to sulk. Curry had left the Drugs Squad feeling very proud to have been chosen, and he had seen the smug smiles now that he had been temporarily reassigned back there again.

  What’s that?

  The special unit has been closed down – again?

  So it didn’t work out?

  Curry didn’t regard himself as the world’s brightest or most educated person, but at times he felt that the people around him behaved almost like children. The envy in the corridors, the sniping in all directions, the constant battles for a higher place in the pecking order, as if they were at school or in a chicken coop.

  Well, whatever.

  Don’t get drunk tonight.

  He made a vow to himself. Every night this week he had gone to the same bar and ended up in bed with the same young woman. What on earth did she see in him?

  ‘Or perhaps you’re not in touch with her these days?’

  Dahl was not giving up.

  ‘Oh yes, we speak on the phone from time to time.’

  ‘Was it really self-defence or is it true that she executed the guy?’

  Curry pretended to take a sudden interest in what was happening in the flat above them, but it didn’t work.

  ‘They say she just cracked. That she’s not all there. She did kill him, didn’t she? It wasn’t Munch?’

  Curry sighed.