The Owl Always Hunts At Night

by Samuel Bjork

  ‘That’s not my biggest problem right now.’ Munch got up.

  ‘Leaving already?’

  ‘Yes. I have to get some sleep. We’ll carry on tomorrow.’

  He was putting on his coat just as his mobile rang. He strangled another yawn and looked at the display. Gabriel Mørk. Munch considered ignoring it but ended up taking the call.

  ‘Munch speaking?’

  There was total silence on the other end.

  ‘Hello?’

  Still not a sound.

  ‘Are you there, Gabriel? What’s going on?’

  Mia looked up from her notes.

  ‘You have to come in,’ Gabriel’s voice said weakly.

  ‘What is it? What’s going on?’

  ‘You have to come in,’ Gabriel said again.

  ‘Come where?’ Munch said.

  ‘There’s something I need to show you.’

  The young hacker sounded upset.

  ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘No,’ Gabriel insisted. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Are you serious? Are you at the office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK, I’m on my way,’ Munch said, and rang off.

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Gabriel called from the office. He wants me to come over now. Do you want to come with me?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mia nodded, and finished her beer.

  FOUR

  Chapter 32

  Sunniva Rød ran up the last few steps and hung her coat in her locker. She took out her uniform and heaved a sigh as she put it on. She had worked at the hospice for almost eight years, and, to begin with, she had found it quite appealing, the tight-fitting, old-fashioned uniform, but by now she was fed up. And not just with the uniform but also with her job.

  Sunniva sighed again, and went to the staff room to make herself a cup of coffee.

  Fiji.

  Azure sea, palm trees and freedom.

  They had been saving up for almost a year, and she had been so excited about it. All last winter, nothing but cold and darkness, no time off; they had even gone without a summer holiday and she had taken all the extra shifts she could get, but she had not minded because the following January they would be going to paradise. For a whole month.

  And then the bastard had done it again. Gambled away their money. Got drunk and lost everything. Again. But this time she had had enough. She truly loved Curry, no doubt about it, but she could not live like this.

  No. It was the last straw. She had thrown him out, and now she felt only relief. The flat belonged to her. Her father had given them the money some years ago when they decided to move in together. And now it was all hers. She felt free.

  Sunniva took her cup of coffee from the staff room and joined her colleagues for the morning briefing. The night shift had finished, the day shift was about to take over, and everyone would be updated on the previous night’s events. St Helena’s Hospice was where the very old came to spend their last days, weeks or months, and it was generally an uneventful place. A doctor would visit. There might be a change of medication.

  After the morning briefing she treated herself to a second cup of coffee before starting her round. She needed it. Because Torvald Sund was on her list today.

  The mad vicar.

  There was something about the old man and the darkness in his eyes which gave her the creeps.

  Sunniva put on a smile and took his breakfast tray into his room. Luckily, the vicar was asleep, so she set it down on the bedside table. A salmon and caper sandwich. Camomile tea with honey and a glass of orange juice. They knew how to look after their patients at St Helena’s.

  Sunniva was about to leave when the vicar suddenly opened his eyes.

  ‘I won’t get into Heaven!’ the old man exclaimed, staring at her.

  ‘Of course you will.’ She smiled.

  ‘No. I’ve sinned.’

  The old man looked distressed.

  ‘Oh, God, forgive me. Oh, Father, I didn’t know, I didn’t know. Please let me atone for my sins.’

  The man raised his scrawny arms up in the air and was practically crying out to the ceiling.

  ‘Why does no one listen?’

  According to his drugs chart, the vicar received three dosages each of 10mg of diazepam and 0.5mg of morphine every day, which were administered intravenously. Sunniva checked the IV and discovered that it was empty. The night shift had failed to top up his medication. She shook her head with mild irritation and removed the bag from the stand.

  ‘No,’ the old man protested.

  Sunniva looked down at him.

  ‘No, no,’ the vicar said again, pointing a crooked finger at the bag in her hand.

  It took a few seconds before she realized what he was trying to say.

  ‘You don’t want your medication?’

  The old man shook his head and pointed to a book on his bedside table.

  ‘The Bible? Would you like me to read to you?’

  The vicar shook his head and looked at her with eyes that seemed more lucid now.

  Then he mumbled that he wanted her to open the cupboard in his bedside table.

  She reattached the IV bag to the stand, walked around the bed, knelt down by the bedside table and opened it. There was an old newspaper inside.

  ‘This one?’

  The old man nodded. He was smiling faintly now.

  ‘Her,’ he said, pointing.

  ‘Who?’ Sunniva said.

  ‘The children are burning,’ the vicar whispered, his gaze no longer so lucid.

  ‘Torvald?’ Sunniva said, placing her hand on his forehead. It was very hot.

  ‘Torvald?’

  No response.

  The old man was no longer awake; his eyelids slowly closed and the crooked finger which had pointed to the newspaper hung limply beside the bed.

  Sunniva Rød put the newspaper back where she had found it, tucked the old man in, went to the drug cupboard to fetch a fresh IV bag and hooked it up to the frail, wrinkled hand. She checked that the old man was sound asleep, softly closed the door behind her and continued her morning round.

  Chapter 33

  Gabriel Mørk was sitting very still on his chair at the back of the incident room. He had not slept for twenty-four hours, yet he did not feel tired. He had been sick several times during the night and his stomach was completely empty, yet he was not hungry. He was in shock; he must be. The day before, when Skunk had texted him, turned up outside his office out of the blue, insisting on a meeting, Gabriel had been intrigued, of course he had, but nothing could have prepared him for this.

  Munch was standing by the projector, and he looked exhausted. They had not slept either, Mia and Munch; they had been with him in the office all night. Anette Goli had turned up around 3 a.m., Curry shortly afterwards, smelling strongly of booze. The only people who had yet to see the film were Kim Kolsø, Ylva and Ludvig Grønlie.

  ‘As you will all be aware now’ – Munch coughed, and looked across at the subdued gathering – ‘Gabriel was contacted last night by an old friend, called …’

  Munch glanced quickly at Gabriel.

  ‘Skunk,’ the young man mumbled.

  ‘An old hacker friend called Skunk, who has found a film on the Internet, on some kind of secret server. And, from what I can gather, this hacker isn’t particularly keen on the police, so it’s entirely thanks to Gabriel that we have got it at all.’

  They turned towards him now, the others, and nodded. He thought he was going to throw up again and was embarrassed at himself. He had felt proud after the trip to Hurumlandet Nurseries, a step up the ladder, no longer the newbie, and now he was right back to where he had started, on the pavement outside six months ago. A kid, that was all he was, who had thrown up at the terrible realization of what they were dealing with. How unprofessional. He rested his hands in his lap and tried to breathe calmly.

  ‘As you know,’ Munch continued, ‘Camilla Green’s physical con
dition when she was found was much worse than when she disappeared. She was extremely thin, emaciated, she had blisters and grazing on her hands and knees, and bruises everywhere. The post mortem also showed that her stomach contents consisted exclusively of pellets, some kind of animal feed, and thanks to Gabriel, we’re about to find out why.’

  Gabriel saw Ylva turn to him with a mixture of curiosity and fear. The newest member of the team looked very uncomfortable. Again, he could sympathize.

  ‘Ludvig, please would you turn out the lights?’ Munch said.

  Ludvig got up and flicked the switch, and the room fell quiet as Munch pressed the button and the short film clip started playing on the overhead screen in front of them.

  Gabriel forced himself to watch it. Maybe he could be like Mia and Munch this time. Watch it through police eyes. Look for evidence. Not see it like a normal human being, like the first time he had watched it.

  The screen was black to begin with. But then she appeared, Camilla Green. It looked like she was in a basement. And as the light slowly brightened, a big wheel emerged. It was inside something that could be a cage. For a mouse or hamster, perhaps, but everything was scaled up, designed for a human being. It might have been funny if it had not been the saddest thing Gabriel had ever seen. Camilla Green was sitting inside the wheel, and at first Gabriel had not been able to understand what was going on, but his confusion had not lasted long. When Camilla Green crawled slowly inside the big, heavy wheel, its rotation made the light come on.

  She was being held prisoner.

  In a basement. In a cage. With no light.

  Gabriel had to look away.

  As Camilla Green desperately made the big wheel turn faster and faster, the struggle evident in every movement, they could see that someone had painted some letters in white on the grey wall behind her.

  The chosen one.

  Camilla managed to get the wheel up to a constant speed. One hand in front of the other, as fast and as steadily as she could. The team began to exchange confused looks. Why would she try to go faster? The light had already come on. Then suddenly a hatch opened and something fell onto the floor.

  Food.

  That was why she ran so hard.

  To eat.

  Gabriel could not remember when he had returned his gaze to the screen.

  Pellets.

  He could hold it back no longer. He could not bear to watch another second. Gabriel ran from the room, pushed open the door to the lavatory and slumped to his knees in front of the bowl as stomach acid surged up and out through his mouth and he started sweating profusely.

  ‘Are you all right, Gabriel?’

  The young hacker was incapable of saying anything. He barely registered that the door behind him had opened and that Mia had entered.

  Mia stuck a hand towel under the tap and passed it to him, then knelt down beside him while he pressed the cold flannel against his face to cool down.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he muttered gingerly.

  It was not the image of himself he wanted to convey. To Mia Krüger, of all people. A rookie unable to cope with the realities of the job. But it was too late to worry about that now; the night had been far too long.

  ‘I think you had better go home,’ his colleague said amicably. ‘We’ll do it later.’

  Gabriel wiped his forehead with the soothing towel again, not sure what she meant.

  ‘Do what?’ he asked, looking up at her.

  Mia put her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I know it’s hard, but we need to know, don’t we?’

  ‘Know what?’ Gabriel said, perplexed.

  ‘Where he got it from. Your friend. Skunk. We need to know as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gabriel nodded carefully, although he knew full well that that would be impossible.

  Chapter 34

  Curry swallowed another mouthful of coffee as Mia returned to the incident room and sat down again.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Munch asked.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ Mia said.

  ‘Good.’ Munch looked as if he did not know what to say next.

  He was still standing next to the projector, strangling a yawn and scratching his beard.

  ‘Right,’ he began, but said nothing more.

  Curry felt for him. He had slept on the sofa in Mia’s flat again, having first drunk nearly half a bottle of whisky. He had passed out and almost failed to hear his phone when it started ringing at three o’clock in the morning.

  He was totally sober now, or at least he felt like it. A mixture of incomprehension and outrage had cast a shadow over everything else.

  This is bigger than we thought it was.

  What kind of sick son of a bitch would do something like this? Trap a young girl inside a cage? For months? Force her to crawl inside a big wheel to get light? To get food?

  Munch continued his struggle at the front of the room to find the right words. He looked like he would give almost anything to put his head on a pillow.

  Curry regarded himself as a tough guy, but he had found it hard to know what to do with himself when the film had rolled across the screen. The terrified face of Camilla Green, totally exhausted.

  The poor girl.

  ‘Any questions?’ Munch said eventually. ‘Before we start analysing what we have seen?’

  He looked around at the group, but no one said anything.

  ‘Mia?’ he said, handing over his spot by the projector to his colleague, who did not look as if the lack of sleep troubled her in any way.

  ‘OK,’ Mia said, pressing a button. ‘Some of you probably want to see the film again, and you’ll be able to do that, of course – there’s a copy of it on our server – but for now I think we should take the time to study the footage in detail. We have divided it into a series of stills, and we’ll start by focusing on a number of things you might have missed initially, but which we think might be important. There is obviously much more going on here than we first thought. Whoever is responsible for this will not have the chance even to think about a second victim. Not on our watch.’

  She was impressive like this. Curry had always respected her, of course, but he could really see it now. How she could put aside her emotions, how she played the detective; he could almost hear the cogs in her brain whirring.

  ‘Why was Camilla Green so thin when we found her? We know that now. Why did she have blisters on her hands and bruises on her knees? We know that now. And, last, why did the post-mortem report show that her stomach contained only animal feed? We also know the answer to that. So we can cross all that off our list. And I realize that it might be difficult for you to accept that what you have just seen is real, but we must remember that it is. Camilla met a truly horrific end at the hands of some monster. The more we know, the easier it will be for us to catch this bastard – or bastards – am I right?’

  Curry did not know why Mia made this speech; surely it did not need saying. But then he saw Ylva. She looked as if she might faint at any moment.

  ‘Two facts. Number one: Camilla Green was kept prisoner in a basement. Forced to live like an animal. Possibly for months. Number two: at some point the killer, or killers, murdered her, sacrificed her in something that looks very much like a ritual.’

  Mia pressed the button again, and then again, back and forth between two pictures. Camilla in the basement, and in the clearing in the woods.

  ‘So. Question one. Motive? Is it the same motive behind both crimes?’

  She looked across the table, but no one said anything, so she continued.

  ‘Is it all part of the same crime? Camilla being held in the basement, treated like an animal. Camilla resurfacing months later, naked this time, posed in a pentagram of candles. Is it the same motive? Is there a link?’

  She looked up again and took a sip from her water bottle, and it was at that moment that Curry realized why Mia did not seem as tired as Munch. She was high. Curry felt a pang of guilt. She had been so supporti
ve, letting him crash on her sofa, and he had not meant to pry, but he had not been able to help seeing the jars in the bathroom cabinet. The pills.

  ‘I’m not saying that there isn’t,’ Mia continued, nodding lightly. ‘But we have to ask ourselves. Why keep her prisoner? Why pose her naked in the woods?’

  ‘And what do you think, Mia?’ Kim Kolsø said. He was the first person to open his mouth.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mia replied, then paused in thought before she continued. ‘I mean, doesn’t it seem odd to you? I don’t see the connection myself.’

  Curry could see that several of the others were starting to notice it, too. That she was not her usual self. That there was something odd about her. Curry suspected that she’d taken an upper of some kind.

  ‘I don’t see any reason for any of it,’ Kim Kolsø went on. ‘Why would it be two different crimes? Two different motives? Did one sick bastard find her in the basement of another sick bastard and decide he could go one better?’

  ‘You may be right,’ Mia said, thinking about it again. ‘But, yes, there’s just …’

  She scratched her head and took another swig from the water bottle on the table in front of her.

  ‘Right, great, let’s leave it for now. We have a huge amount of other evidence to look at. Move on.’

  Kim glanced quickly at Curry, who glanced back at him but only shrugged his shoulders slightly.

  ‘OK,’ Mia continued. ‘Let’s look at some physical evidence, and then at something Holger and I have discovered.’

  She clicked again, several times in a row.

  ‘First off. This wheel. I wouldn’t have thought you could buy it in a shop. Did someone build it? We need to look into it.’

  Another picture.

  ‘The writing on the wall behind her. The chosen one. Why is Camilla the chosen one?’

  Another picture.

  ‘The footage. Yes, the footage itself. Why was she filmed? Was it for personal viewing? I mean, it was found on a server. Was it shared with anyone? Was that the reason for keeping her prisoner? To film her? And later share the film with others?’

  She took another sip of water, and it was obvious now. She was talking non-stop and her eyes were the size of plates.