by Samuel Bjork
‘Listen, I’m a bit busy now,’ Mia said, glancing at Munch, who had just got a text message.
‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I just had to check. Then I’ll make a note here saying, “ALL OK with Krüger, Mia”.’
‘You do that.’ Mia ended the call.
‘That was Anette,’ Munch said.
‘Yes?’
‘We have the name of the victim’s psychiatrist.’
‘What psychiatrist?’
‘Didn’t I tell you? Sorry. Medication was found in Vivian Berg’s flat. Antidepressants prescribed by her GP on the recommendation of this man, I believe.’
Munch held up his mobile so she could read the screen.
‘Wolfgang Ritter?’
‘Ring any bells?’ Munch was clearly pleased with himself.
‘No.’
‘Seriously? Wolfgang Ritter? Don’t you watch the news?’
Mia shook her head and found another lozenge in the pocket of her leather jacket. She had junked her TV long ago and avoided newspapers whenever she could. As a child, watching the news had been obligatory, the family gathered in front of the television in the living room in Åsgårdstrand, but she didn’t have the energy for it these days. In the past the media had assumed a kind of collective responsibility to inform the population. Now it was all about ratings. Fear and celebrities in a breathless race for prime time and Internet clicks. She couldn’t even be bothered to glance at the front pages of newspapers in the shops.
What’s the reason behind the conflict between Israel and Palestine?
What’s the name of the author against whom a fatwa was declared by Ayatollah Khomeini?
Why did Chinese students demonstrate in Tiananmen Square?
Her mother, Eva Krüger, had been a teacher at Åsgården School and it had been hugely important to her that her daughters did well at school and were up to speed with current affairs. Sigrid had done better than she had, of course. A grades in everything. Mia had often wondered if that was part of the explanation, that all this perfection had finally become too much, that drugs had become a kind of rebellion, but it didn’t ring true. Her father, Kyrre, had sold paint. Adopting the twins had been a gift from heaven for the childless couple. Their mother could be a little brusque at times, but she was never overly strict. A little too much of a teacher at home, perhaps, but no more than that.
Markus Skog.
It was his fault.
‘Dr LSD?’ Munch again.
‘Who?’
‘Wolfgang Ritter? The director of Blakstad psychiatric hospital? The psychiatrist who has argued in favour of giving psychedelic drugs to patients with severe mental-health problems?’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘There was a documentary less than a week ago? On the television.’
‘Didn’t watch it. I thought people had tried that as far back as the 1970s?’
‘Yes, yes, but not these days. Which planet are you on?’
Munch turned in his seat and looked at her.
‘Sorry,’ Mia said, shrugging off her thoughts. ‘I’m back.’
‘A seemingly healthy young woman? Our little ray of sunshine? On heavy antidepressants? Don’t you think that’s just a little bit strange?’
Munch scratched his beard and reached for another cigarette but changed his mind.
‘Absolutely. Have we spoken to him yet?’
‘We’ll need a warrant from a judge first.’
‘Patient–doctor confidentiality?’
‘Anette is on it. It’s a formality, won’t take long,’ Munch said as his mobile rang again.
‘Yes?’
She had shot him.
In the chest. Twice.
Markus Skog.
‘And you’ve been to his house?’
No, stop thinking about it.
‘Does Raymond Greger have any family – apart from Karoline Berg? Contact the school and find out if any of his colleagues know anything.’
Memories packed away in boxes in her flat.
‘Put a car outside his house. And issue a person-of-interest notice. Yes. He’s very important to us. All the resources you have, if possible. Please keep me updated. Fine, thank you.’
Munch ended the call and frowned.
‘Was that Larvik police?’
‘Yes. They haven’t found Raymond Greger. He’s not at home. His neighbours haven’t seen him for a week.’
‘Really?’
‘Too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Absolutely. We’ll have to visit her again, won’t we?’
‘Karoline Berg?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hate the idea of it, but I think we’ll have to.’
Munch sighed and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
‘Are you coming with me to see the pathologist?’
‘No, I want to talk to Halvorsen from Forensics. I’d have expected to hear from them by now, it’s odd that they haven’t been in touch – they must not have found anything yet.’
‘OK, I’ll drop you off on my way,’ Munch said, pulling out from the car park.
‘Ask the pathologist about the damage to the victim’s mouth,’ Mia said when they reached the Kripos building in Brynsalléen.
‘What damage?’
‘Vivian Berg had sores around her mouth. I don’t recall having seen anything like that before.’
‘OK.’
‘Team briefing later today?’
‘Between seven and eight.’
‘I’ll see you then,’ Mia said, and got out of the car.
Chapter 13
Munch rang the bell and waited a little while before a voice answered. The new forensic pathologist. Lillian Lund. He realized that he was looking forward to meeting her.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Holger Munch.’
‘Oh, yes, hello, great. Do come in. I’m in room one. At the far end of the corridor. Just follow the music.’
The music?
Munch didn’t understand what she meant until he was inside. The music drifted towards him from a room further down the corridor, a very heartening feature in the otherwise sombre department. He couldn’t help smiling when he recognized what it was. Bach. One of his personal favourites. And not just any recording either. The Goldberg Variations. He had the CD at home. He had played it so many times he almost knew it by heart. Glenn Gould performing. A genius, no doubt about it, but also an artist on the verge of insanity. Munch couldn’t help thinking of Mia. But she seemed to be doing so much better now.
‘Hello?’
Munch knocked on the door of the room the music was coming from and was about to enter when he was stopped by a young man wearing a white plastic apron, a mask and latex gloves.
‘Who are you?’
‘Munch,’ he said, holding up his warrant card. ‘Special unit. Mariboesgate. I’m looking for Lillian Lund?’
The music was loud in here. Soft, beautiful notes contrasting with the grey, cool room and especially the body lying on the table just inside it.
‘Hello, Munch,’ said a woman who emerged from the back room and removed a glove in order to shake his hand.
She was wearing a mask but pulled it down now.
‘Lillian Lund.’ She smiled as she introduced herself.
Dark hair. Clear, blue eyes. About his own age, if he were asked to guess.
‘That’s not yours,’ she said with a nod to the body on the table. ‘She’s in room two, I’ll just finish up here, then I’ll join you.’
‘I’ll wait in the corridor.’
‘Great.’ Lillian Lund smiled again and turned to the young man who had stopped Munch. ‘Please would you redo those samples I asked you about?’
‘Again?’
‘I think they must have been contaminated. The values are far too high.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said the young, blond man, glancing furtively at Munch before he disappeared back the way he had come.
Munch returned to the corridor, found a chair and thought about lighting a cigarette. In the old days it wouldn’t have been a problem. Ernst Hugo Vik, the previous pathologist who had been responsible for most of the cases he had investigated, had been eccentric but, more importantly, a chain-smoker who never cared much for rules. Something told Munch that there had been a regime change following the arrival of Lillian Lund, so he decided not to light up.
She joined him a few minutes later.
‘Phew, I’m sorry.’ Lund flopped down in the chair opposite Munch. ‘Four bodies in just as many days. Your girl and three overdoses. It seems like Oslo is flooded at the moment.’
‘Overdoses come in here?’ Munch was surprised.
‘Of course. Why not?’
‘Nothing. It’s just news to me.’
‘New boss. New rules,’ Lillian Lund said kindly. ‘I want to see everybody. That’s as it should be, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, yes, definitely.’ Munch nodded, feeling himself warm to this new pathologist.
On the ball and dedicated. And Glenn Gould on the speakers was an added bonus.
‘Would you like to see her? Or is it true what I’ve been told, that you just want to see pictures?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Have I got it wrong? You’re not the detective who doesn’t need to see the bodies?’
‘You’re thinking of Mia Krüger,’ Munch said with a smile.
‘Ah, OK, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t apologize. What have you got so far?’
He got up from the chair.
‘What do you mean, “so far”?’ Lund said. ‘You’ll find protective clothes in that cupboard over there, by the way.’
Don a white plastic gown in order to view the body? That would never have happened in Vik’s day. The Institute of Forensic Medicine was definitely under new management, there could be no doubt about it.
‘I mean, you haven’t had a lot of time.’
‘Oh, it’s a myth that everything takes so much time. Sometimes, yes, but in this case the cause of death is straightforward.’
Lund put her mask back on and gestured for him to follow her into the other room. She removed the white sheet from the body that was lying there and pointed to the woman’s chest. The incisions made during the autopsy had been so crudely stitched together that Munch had a brief moment of thinking that the body in front of him wasn’t real. He had never liked this aspect of his job. On the rare occasions he watched TV series where hardened investigators bent over corpses without changing their expression, he was sorely tempted to phone up and complain. It was making light of a difficult situation. And definitely not realistic.
‘There’s your needle mark. You saw the report I sent to Kripos? Ethylene glycol?’
Munch nodded.
‘I don’t remember seeing anything like that before. Do you?’
Munch made no reply. He felt respect was due to the white, cut-up body lying lifeless in front of him. Thirty years as an investigator, but he would never get used to this. Death. A life had ended. Had been reduced to an object of scientific interest on a table in a grey basement at Ullevål Hospital.
‘Would you like me to cover her up?’ Lund said, looking at him kindly.
‘It’s fine.’
‘I completely understand. I do this all the time, but it’s difficult even for me.’
‘What did you say again?’ Munch said, putting on his professional face once more.
‘Have you ever seen this before? Antifreeze?’
‘Not like this, no, never. We know of several cases where people were poisoned with it, but always orally and over time. They’re usually fine in the end. There’s long-term damage, but they survive. You need a large dose to kill someone.’
‘I know.’ Lund nodded, chewing her lip. ‘Pretty callous, don’t you think?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not an investigator, but it’s not everyone who can get right up close to another human being and plunge a needle into their heart …’
‘It’s early days yet.’
‘I understand,’ Lund said, moving down the white body. ‘Vagina. No signs of violent penetration. No semen traces. It doesn’t look like the motive was sexual, at least not as far as I can see.’
Munch nodded.
‘Nails, hands.’ Lund pointed. ‘Strangely clean. No traces of anything. It’s almost as if someone washed her.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ Lund frowned. ‘And the same applies to the rest of her body. There’s barely anything there.’
‘But then again, she was in the water when she was found.’
‘Yes, I know, but even so there should be something. No bruises? No injuries anywhere? Surely she must have … fought back a little? I mean, a strong girl like her.’
‘We’re working on a theory that she walked to the crime scene herself,’ Munch said in a low voice.
‘Seriously?’
Lund looked surprised.
‘I know. That’s as far as we’ve got.’
‘You don’t have anyone in mind?’
‘We’re looking into a few people, but there are no actual suspects for now, unfortunately.’
‘There’s only one thing I can’t explain yet,’ Lund said, moving to the top of the table.
‘What’s that?’
‘Do you see her mouth?’
‘Yes?’
‘Taped over at some point, wouldn’t you say? I didn’t look properly at first, but there was something which … do you see these?’
She pointed to the skin around the corners of the victim’s mouth.
‘That’s not normal.’
‘What?’
‘These blisters. They’re almost like burns – do you see them?’
‘I do. Mia asked me to ask you about them.’
‘Well spotted,’ Lund said. ‘They’re not from the tape. In fact, I don’t know what they are, but I’ll send some fresh samples off for testing.’
‘When do you think we’ll find out what they are?’
‘It shouldn’t take all that long, so sometime tomorrow morning, I would say.’
They were interrupted by the young, blond assistant, who entered the room without knocking. For some reason, he evaded Munch’s eyes this time.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but we have another body coming in.’
‘An overdose?’ Lund wanted to know.
‘Yes.’
‘Damn it. Excuse my language, but what is going on in this town?’
She shook her head irritably and headed for the door. Munch followed her out into the corridor.
‘I’m sorry, but I’ll have to leave you now.’
Lillian Lund took off her glove and her mask and shook his hand.
‘Thank you for your help so far.’
‘My pleasure. I’ll call you once I know something,’ the forensic pathologist said, and strode quickly down the corridor towards the music.
Chapter 14
Theo Halvorsen sat hunched over a microscope in the laboratory but quickly got up when he saw her enter.
‘Moonbeam!’ he cried out, smiling at her. ‘It’s been too long. Where have you been?’
Mia smiled back. ‘Nowhere, sadly.’
‘Oh, been suspended again, have you? Was that it?’ Halvorsen said, taking off his glasses.
‘Is that what people are saying?’
‘Depends who you ask.’ The affable technician shrugged. ‘Some said you had been booted out, others that you were going sailing.’
‘The last bit is true, except I didn’t get very far. You’re dealing with the ballet dancer, am I right?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid you are.’ Halvorsen sighed. ‘Plus a whole heap of other jobs. I never seem to have enough time. Do you think I’ll ever catch up?’
The technician threw up his hands and looked around. The long laboratory was stacked with papers and boxes from floor to ceiling. The room had no
windows and made Mia feel as if she were in the basement, even though they were on the third floor. She knew that Halvorsen had asked for the windows to be blacked out to avoid distraction.
Theo Halvorsen. Mia had known the fifty-something technician for about ten years and knew that, although he was notorious for whingeing about his workload, there was no one else she would rather go to if she needed an answer. Halvorsen was like a mini-Einstein. He didn’t like working with other people, preferring to do everything himself, but his results were always better and more accurate than those that came from the second floor.
‘So you haven’t been to your cabin?’ Mia asked, following him across the room.
‘When would I find time for that?’ Halvorsen said, putting his spectacles back on.
He found a stool and lifted down a small cardboard box from a shelf.
‘And how is Britt?’
‘She hasn’t left me yet, more fool her.’ Halvorsen winked and carried the cardboard box to the microscope.
‘Is that mine?’ Mia said with a nod at the box.
‘What do you mean?’
‘That one? Why is a current case stored so far away?’
‘Moonbeam.’ Halvorsen sighed and shook his head patiently. ‘I know you wrap everyone around your little finger and that people allow themselves to be blinded by your Gothic charm, but not me, I do things by the book.’
‘So what’s this?’
‘Teeth,’ he said, slipping on a pair of blue latex gloves. ‘Not all killings are aesthetically pleasing, my dear, or carried out with intelligence and joie de vivre, to be solved by Hercule Poirot or young Krüger exercising their little grey cells and ending up in the history books.’
Halvorsen sighed again and opened the box. ‘A young drug dealer beaten to death with a crowbar behind Manglerud shopping centre, and now they want to know if there is any connection to a gangster they found with his mouth bleeding in Sofienberg Park. Tasty, don’t you think?’
Halvorsen was known for this, complaining about everything, but Mia liked him all the same. They had worked on several cases where his eagle eyes had found the exact evidence they needed, and she knew that grumpiness was merely a façade he adopted when things didn’t go his way.
She waited patiently until the brown teeth he had been studying were back in the box and he had made notes on the laptop on the workstation behind him.
