The Owl Always Hunts At Night

by Samuel Bjork

  She could still change her mind, she could; she did not have to see Ziggy again, she could drop out of the raid tomorrow night; but though she had a choice, she knew that it was already too late. She had not spoken to Johannes; it would have wrecked his trip and she did not want to spoil it for him, but when he came back, she would tell him.

  It would be a relief in so many ways. Honesty. Not having to sneak around any more. She glanced up at the rear-view mirror and saw her pretty daughter laugh at something on the screen, and she felt another pang of guilt, but ignored it.

  Marion was going to be fine.

  Miriam was absolutely sure of it.

  ‘Am I going to Grannie’s?’ the little girl said, as she saw that they had pulled up outside the white house in Røa.

  ‘Yes.’ Miriam nodded, getting out of the car and waving to her mother, who was already on the doorstep waiting for them.

  ‘Yeeees!’ Marion exclaimed, and could barely sit still long enough to get out of her seatbelt.

  ‘Did it go OK?’ Marianne Munch asked, taking the overnight bag from Miriam.

  ‘Yes, we were a bit late setting off, but we got there in time.’

  ‘Grannie, please can I watch TV?’ Marion said, running straight inside the house without waiting for a reply.

  ‘So, until Wednesday?’ her mother said, looking at Miriam.

  ‘Yes, do you mind?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I’m only glad you can help Julie,’ her mother said, and again Miriam felt a little guilty, but lying was her only option; she could not tell her mother what she was really doing.

  An illegal raid.

  Don’t tell anyone.

  A little white lie.

  ‘But apart from that, is she OK? I haven’t seen her for ages.’

  ‘Yes, but you know what she’s like. Terribly sensitive. Boy trouble, that’s all. It’ll pass.’

  ‘Yes, I know, it’s not easy, but I’m glad that she has you,’ her mother said, stroking her cheek lightly. ‘Do you want to say bye to Mummy?’ she called out down the hallway, and Marion came running and gave her a quick hug.

  ‘I’ll see you on Wednesday.’ Miriam smiled and headed back to the car.

  ‘Give my love to Julie.’ Her mother waved and went back inside the white house.

  Chapter 61

  Mia Krüger had a horrible feeling that she had made a huge mistake as she stood next to Munch behind the window to the interview room. The young hacker with the black-and-white hair sat very still. He looked at them. Although he could not see them, he knew that they were there, and he had sat like this without saying anything at all ever since they brought him in, more than twenty-four hours ago.

  ‘Still nothing?’ Anette Goli said, joining them.

  ‘No.’ Mia heaved a sigh.

  ‘He keeps saying the same thing?’

  ‘Exactly the same thing every time,’ Munch said, scratching his beard.

  ‘He still doesn’t want a lawyer?’

  ‘No, he says he doesn’t need one,’ Mia said, looking back at the young man, who continued to sit very still, his eyes fixed on them.

  ‘Well, he’s right about that,’ Goli said, and took a seat.

  ‘Nothing from his computers?’ Munch asked.

  ‘No,’ Anette said. ‘I’ve just spoken to one of our technicians, and they can’t find anything. He seemed almost impressed.’

  ‘In what way?’ Mia asked.

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ Goli said, throwing up her hands.

  ‘There must have been something?’ Munch insisted.

  ‘No,’ Goli said, shaking her head. ‘All gone. Completely blank.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s nothing there. And I don’t mean there was nothing incriminating. They were quite simply blank.’

  ‘How odd,’ Munch said.

  ‘I took the liberty of asking Gabriel how that was possible. I hope that was all right. He didn’t seem to be in the best of moods – has something happened?’

  ‘My fault,’ Mia said. ‘I was too hard on him. I have apologized. I’m hoping it’ll pass.’

  ‘Right,’ Anette said. ‘You accused him of being an accomplice because he knows Skunk, but didn’t know where he was. Is that what you’re saying?’

  Mia could hear the sarcasm but ignored it; she had too many other things on her mind.

  ‘I’ll make it up to Gabriel. Like I said, I’ve already apologized.’

  ‘Good,’ Anette said and exhaled. ‘Because it’s a little far-fetched, isn’t it?’

  Mia could feel that the police lawyer was looking at Munch.

  ‘What is?’ Mia said, mildly irritated.

  ‘Why is he really here?’ She nodded towards the young hacker, who had yet to move.

  ‘He brought us the film,’ Munch said.

  ‘In order to help us?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Munch said. ‘But—’

  ‘So what did Gabriel say?’ Mia interrupted.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About there being nothing on the computers we found at Skunk’s place.’

  ‘Pretty much the same reaction as the other technician I spoke to,’ Anette said. ‘He was impressed.’

  ‘Can anyone explain to me what’s going on?’ Munch asked, turning to them. ‘I know I’m from a different age, and I’m sorry if I need to be spoon-fed, but why was there nothing on his computers? And why do IT guys find this so impressive?’

  The fat investigator looked at them both now, and it was clear that he had not understood a word of their conversation.

  ‘It’s impressive because they are nerds,’ Mia said, without taking her eyes off the room next door. ‘Skunk was clearly prepared. In case someone raided his bunker, like we did, he had set up a system that would delete everything.’

  ‘And that’s impressive because …?’ Munch asked, still looking quizzical.

  ‘Because it’s not easy,’ Anette said.

  ‘OK,’ Munch said. ‘So what have we got? What’s next?’

  ‘We have nothing,’ Anette Goli said. ‘All we have is a theory.’

  She looked somewhat uneasily at Mia now. ‘And the fact that he brought us the film.’

  ‘And that means what?’ Munch said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Goli said.

  ‘I mean, how long can we keep him? Where do we go from here?’

  ‘There’s no doubt that he knows his rights.’ Goli said with a sigh, glancing at the young hacker. ‘If I’ve understood you correctly, he has stated only his name, his date of birth and his address.’

  Mia nodded.

  ‘Several times.’ Munch sighed now.

  ‘And, as you know, that’s all he is required to do under the law,’ the police lawyer continued. ‘This young man knows exactly where we are. After four hours, we need to charge him, then we have twenty-four hours to bring him before a judge to apply for him to be remanded in custody—’

  ‘We know how to do our job.’ Mia cut her off, somewhat impatiently.

  ‘As we arrested him on a Sunday,’ Anette Goli said, ignoring her, ‘which is not a working day, we could have kept him longer, if we had charged him, which we didn’t do yesterday because, well, because all we can charge him with is helping us and, the last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime. Right now, we’re the ones breaking the law. With every passing minute.’

  Anette tapped her wrist in order to emphasize her point, and Mia felt even more irritated, but she knew perfectly well that Goli was right.

  ‘So, we’re not going to charge him?’

  Munch looked at Mia.

  ‘We have nothing to charge him with,’ Anette said.

  ‘Perverting the course of justice?’ Mia suggested.

  ‘How?’

  ‘He said he found the film on a server in a second-hand bookshop in Ullevålsveien, which Grønlie checked, and it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘And when did the suspect make this false statement?’
/>
  Goli had put on her lawyer voice now.

  ‘You already know that,’ Mia said. ‘At the pub.’

  ‘So the suspect was in a state of intoxication when he spoke to you? When he spoke to a police officer, who was also under the influence of alcohol? Without a lawyer present? I would also like to point out, Your Honour, that the accused is a teetotaller, and normally doesn’t drink alcohol and, that night, my client—’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Munch said, holding up his hands.

  ‘We have nothing,’ Goli reiterated.

  ‘What did you just say?’ Mia asked.

  ‘We can’t charge him with anything,’ Anette said again.

  ‘No, not that. He doesn’t drink alcohol – how do you know that?’

  ‘Gabriel told me.’

  ‘But why …?’ Mia stared at the young hacker. ‘He felt bad about something,’ she mumbled.

  ‘What?’ Munch said.

  ‘If he doesn’t drink? Why track me down? Why drink that night? He must have felt guilty.’

  ‘We have to release him,’ the police lawyer urged them. ‘This is nonsense. He is just here because Mia had a hunch. I mean, seriously. I know you’re brilliant, Mia, but hello? Holger? Keeping him here is illegal. If he wants to sue us, he has grounds.’

  ‘What did Kripos say?’ Munch wanted to know.

  ‘They haven’t got anything either.’ Anette sighed. ‘He’s on their list, that’s all. I mean, if they had been able to arrest him for something, they would have done so a long time ago.’

  ‘You’re sure of that? That he doesn’t usually drink?’ Mia said, without looking at Anette.

  ‘Gabriel told me,’ Goli said. ‘Why would he lie?’ She looked towards Munch again, and threw up her hands. ‘I mean, for God’s sake, the boy came to us with a film he had found, he helped our investigation, he’s been sitting in there for far too long, we have nothing to charge him with. Kripos has nothing on him. The boy is clean.’

  ‘Give me five minutes,’ Mia said.

  ‘Holger?’ Anette appealed to him. ‘We have no grounds on which to …’

  Mia never heard the end of the sentence, because she had already left. She opened the door to the room, where Skunk was sitting with his hands in his lap, his back just as straight as when they brought him in.

  ‘Hi,’ Mia said, sitting down on the chair opposite him.

  Skunk looked at her.

  ‘Aren’t you going to turn on the recorder? The time is 18.05. Interview resumed. Present in the room is Mia Krüger—’

  ‘No,’ Mia said, folding her arms on the table and resting her head on them.

  ‘My name is Kristian Karlsen,’ the young hacker reeled off. ‘I was born on 5 April 1989. My current address is—’

  ‘Yes, Skunk, you’ve told us. We get it. You know how this works, your rights and all that.’

  Mia leaned back in the chair and looked at him. The hacker with the black-and-white hair met her gaze, and still he did not move.

  ‘Listen …’

  ‘My name is Kristian Karlsen—’ he began again, but Mia cut him off.

  ‘OK, Skunk, my mistake. OK? My mistake.’

  The hacker continued to sit very still, and Mia did not say anything either. She had a feeling about something here, but she could not identify what it was.

  He had come to her.

  Found her at Lorry.

  He had drunk alcohol. Although he usually didn’t drink.

  ‘It doesn’t count unless you turn on the tape recorder,’ Skunk said. ‘Unless the people next door are recording it, but that’s no use, because, as far as I’m aware, the person being interviewed—’

  ‘OK, Skunk,’ Mia interrupted him again, putting her hand to her head. ‘We’re not going to charge you. We have nothing to charge you with. According to my colleague in there’ – she gestured to the window behind her – ‘you’re a hero. You helped our investigation, gave us information we would never have found without you, OK?’

  The young man in front of her continued to sit very still, not taking his eyes off her.

  ‘My mistake, OK, Skunk? Can we leave it at that?’

  ‘My name is Kristian Karlsen—’

  Mia cut him off again.

  ‘I’ve already said that I made a mistake. I’m sorry, OK? Sometimes – well, quite often, this doesn’t work.’ Mia pressed her finger against her temple, and smiled faintly. ‘Today, I’ve already managed to make a young man I really like, a colleague who is incredibly dedicated and hard-working, feel like a piece of crap, and yes, again it was my fault, but I just …’ Mia fell quiet again.

  ‘You need to turn on the recorder,’ Skunk said.

  ‘This is what I’ve been thinking,’ Mia said. ‘And you don’t need to say anything. But bear with me here. Can you do that?’

  Skunk stared at her, still without moving a muscle.

  ‘This is my life, OK, can I tell you a bit about that?’ Mia said. ‘We find a naked girl in the woods. She has been killed. Someone strangled her. Someone placed her on a bed of feathers. In a pentagram of candles. A human being. A young woman. Her whole life in front of her. And it haunts me. I can’t sleep. Do you understand, Skunk? This is my life. This is my job. Making sure that the sick son of a bitch who thinks he can take a pretty young girl like her, do what he likes to her and get away with it, gets his just punishment. That’s how I feel from the moment I wake up in the morning till I go to bed at night. Do you understand?’

  Mia could almost hear what Munch must be thinking through the wall behind her now, and she expected him to intervene at any moment, but she no longer cared. Even if they could not charge Skunk with anything. Even if the law was on his side. There was something he was not telling them.

  Mia looked up at the young hacker again, and she could see that the stony expression he had worn for the last twenty-four hours was starting to soften.

  ‘You have to turn on the recorder, if …’ Skunk said, but he did not finish his sentence.

  ‘OK,’ Mia continued. ‘I don’t think you did it. We can’t charge you with anything, and the lads from IT think you’re one hell of a guy because you managed to wipe your computers when they tried to look at them – not that I give a toss about that. Congratulations to you: you’re the greatest hacker in the world, or whatever you want to be. I really don’t care.’

  The young man in front of her sat very still.

  ‘This is what I’m thinking,’ Mia went on. ‘You had nothing to do with this. You would never do anything like this, hurt anyone like that. Of course you wouldn’t.’

  Skunk still said nothing.

  ‘But,’ Mia said, ‘I think you feel guilty about something. That was why you came to see me. I wondered about it down at Lorry, why a young man like you got so drunk in such a short time, and now I’ve learned that you don’t usually drink. So there’s my theory.’

  The hacker in front of her kept his mouth closed, but the expression in his eyes had changed.

  ‘So you came to me,’ Mia continued, ‘and at first I couldn’t work out how you found me, but then I realized how simple it was. Everyone in my unit has mobiles with GPS and all that – it was easy for you to hack our system and track us all – but then why drink yourself into a stupor if you had something important to tell me?’

  The young man kept his silence.

  ‘What I think is this,’ Mia went on. ‘You found this film and it made you feel just as sick as we did when we saw it. But then …’

  She paused and looked at him, and she could see that his eyes were not as hard as they had been.

  ‘But then you realized that you were somehow involved. I’m not saying that you’re an accomplice. Or that you knew that you were being paid to make something which would be used to commit a crime. And I don’t know what the hell they’re called, or what the difference is – JavaScript, Flash programming; Christ, I can barely work my own email – but you do, don’t you? You’re the best. Our engineers are singing
your praises, you’re that brilliant. Some time ago, someone – and I bet you don’t even know their name – paid you to create something. Devise a program, write machine code that would enable them to transmit a live feed globally in that part of the Internet I know nothing about. And that was what you had worked out. That, though you didn’t know it, you had been party to a serious crime. So you got drunk, something you never do, and came to me. You who hate the authorities. It would never cross your mind to help the police. Yet you found me, and you were going to tell me, weren’t you? That you had made something for an anonymous client? You had been paid, but the client had used you. And that’s why you came. Am I close, Skunk? Is that why you tracked me down?’

  The young man with the black-and-white hair looked at her with an expression in his eyes she could not quite fathom.

  ‘My name is Kristian Karlsen,’ Skunk said, fixing his gaze on the table. ‘My date of birth is 5 April 1989. My current address is—’

  The door behind him opened, and Munch entered the interview room.

  ‘You’re free to go. We won’t be charging you with anything, and I’m sorry that we kept you here longer than we should have. If you can help us in any other way, we would be very grateful. You know where to find us.’

  Mia saw the young hacker get up and head for the door. As he left the room, he stopped for a moment and looked at her and, for a fraction of a second, she thought he might say something, but then he closed his mouth and was gone.

  ‘Mia?’ Munch said, looking at her. ‘A word?’

  Mia Krüger got slowly up from the chair and followed her boss out of the interview room.

  SEVEN

  Chapter 62

  Mia got into her car as soon as she woke up, but day did not break until she reached the cemetery. She should have been at the briefing meeting, but had asked for time off, and Munch had been happy to give her that. She had asked only for a few hours, but Munch had made it very clear that she could take as long as she needed. Her behaviour yesterday had only reinforced her indulgent boss’s opinion that she was not well. That she should not have been back at work.