by Samuel Bjork
‘You’re doing fine.’ Mia yawned. ‘Just tell me.’
‘OK,’ Gabriel went on. ‘You know that the laptop had two users?’
‘Roger and Randi.’
‘Yes, Roger and Randi. And this is where it gets weird.’
‘Why?’
‘Let’s start with Roger. No surprises there. Didn’t use his laptop all that much, he wasn’t a computer freak.’
‘Why not?’
‘He only used his laptop for the usual guy stuff.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Emails. Cars and motorbikes. What we would expect, really.’
‘Who did he email? Anyone interesting?’
‘Not really. There were hardly any private emails, I mean, from people he knew. He had ordered some biker magazines. Bills, e-invoices. Junk mail. A fairly sad life, judging by his email account.’
‘Not everyone lives their life on the Net, Gabriel,’ Mia said.
‘No, you’re right, but even so. The absence of personal stuff is odd, but that’s not the interesting bit.’
‘Could you hang on two seconds?’
‘OK.’
Mia put the mobile on hold and made her way to the hotel telephone on the bedside table. She rang reception and ordered breakfast to be sent to her room. She had tried going to the dining room for breakfast yesterday, and that had been a mistake. Too many people.
‘I’m back.’
‘OK,’ Gabriel said. ‘I’ll check out this Roger user a bit more, but I wanted to tell you what I found on the other one.’
‘Randi?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who is she?’
‘That’s the weird bit.’
‘What?’
Gabriel fell silent for a little while.
‘I think you need to see it for yourself, but I’m quite sure that it’s the same person.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Roger and Randi. They’re one and the same.’
‘Roger Bakken was two people?’
‘Yes, or no. Or, yes. He liked to be a woman.’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘No, it’s the truth.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Under the Roger username, he’s a man. He has photographs of motorbikes and cars. He goes fishing and drinks alcohol. As Randi, he’s completely different. He’s a woman. Bookmarks on the browser are blogs about crocheting and interior design. He has photographs of himself wearing women’s clothing. It looks like he lived a double life.’
‘And you’re quite sure about this?’
She heard Gabriel sigh at the other end.
‘I know I’m not a police officer, but I am capable of spotting a man dressed like a woman.’
‘Sorry,’ Mia said. ‘It just sounds so weird.’
‘I agree,’ Gabriel said. ‘But it is him. One hundred per cent. You can see for yourself when you get here.’
‘I’ll be there shortly,’ Mia said. ‘What about his mobile?’
‘That’s also a bit odd.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Practically all the messages have been deleted, and he had no stored numbers. I don’t know what this guy was up to, but he has done everything he could to erase every trace of himself.’
‘Apart from the photographs of himself dressed as a woman.’
‘Yes, except for that but, like I said, they were on the laptop.’
‘You said that practically all the text messages had been deleted. Are you telling me that you do have some?’
‘Yes, a few cryptic ones.’
‘Let me hear them.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now.’
Mia couldn’t help smiling.
‘OK.’
Gabriel cleared his throat and read aloud what he had found.
‘There are three text messages. All are dated 20 March.’
‘The day he died.’
‘Was it?’
‘Yes, tell me what they say.’
There was a knock on the hotel door. Mia put on one of the hotel’s dressing gowns and brought in her breakfast while Gabriel opened the text messages.
‘OK, the first one is short.’
‘Who sent it?’
‘The sender is anonymous.’
‘How is that possible? Can you really hide your number when you’re texting?’
‘Yes, that’s easy,’ Gabriel replied.
‘I know I probably sound like your granny right now, but how do you do that?’ Mia asked him, and took a sip of her coffee.
It was bitter. She spat it out. She muttered curses under her breath. How could people not learn to make proper coffee? The scrambled eggs and the bacon on the plate did not look very appetizing either.
‘You send it via the Net, using TxtEmNow.com, or some similar site. There are lots of them where you don’t have to register. You just type in the number and the message and off it goes, usually with advertising. That’s how they finance it.’
‘And what did the message say?’
‘There are three.’
‘Let me have them.’
‘“It is unwise to fly too near the sun.”’
‘Again, please.’
Mia was unable to eat anything. She carried the tray to the windowsill.
‘“It is unwise to fly too near the sun.” That’s the first message.’
‘What did he reply?’
‘He didn’t. You can’t reply to a text message when there’s no sender.’
Mia sat down on the bed and leaned her head against the wall. Her headache was starting to lift. Fly too near the sun. The eagle tattoo. Wings. Icarus with his wings. He flew too near the sun and the wings melted. Hubris. Arrogance. Roger Bakken had stepped out of line.
‘Are you there?’
‘Yes, sorry, Gabriel, just had to think.’
‘Are you ready for the next one?’
‘Sure.’
‘ìWho’s there?î’
‘Was that the full message?’
‘Yes. Do you want the final one?’
‘Yes.’
‘ìBye, bye, birdie.î’
Mia closed her eyes, but nothing came to her. ‘Who’s there?’ ‘Bye, bye, birdie’? Right now, it made no sense. She got up from the bed and went to the bathroom. Caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and didn’t like what she saw. She looked exhausted. Practically dead. Ghostly. She bent down and started running the bath.
‘Mia? You still there?’
‘Yes, sorry, Gabriel. I was just trying to work out if the two latter ones made any sense.’
‘And?’
‘No, not right now. I’ll be there in a while, all right?’
‘That’s fine, I’m staying where I am.’
‘Great, Gabriel. Good job so far.’
She ended the call and returned to the bedroom. Put her mobile on the windowsill and tried eating some of her breakfast. She couldn’t get anything down. Never mind. She would get herself a coffee and a scone at Kaffebrenneriet.
‘Who’s there?’ ‘Bye, bye, birdie’?
Mia undressed and got into the bath. The warm water enveloped her body and calmed her down. Being out with Susanne had been great. Really great. In fact, they had arranged to meet up again, hadn’t they? Mia couldn’t quite remember; she had been a little drunk towards the end.
She leaned her head against the rim of the bath and closed her eyes.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Bye, bye, birdie’?
It wasn’t much, but at least it was a start.
Chapter 29
Cecilie Mykle had slept so soundly that it almost hurt to wake up. Force of habit made her reach for the alarm clock, but for some reason it wasn’t ringing. Cecilie tried and failed to open her eyes. Her body felt so heavy and comfortable and warm, almost as if she were lying on a soft cloud with another lovely cloud covering her. She pulled the duvet more tightly around herself and turned over on to her stomach. Pressed her face into the
pillow. Tried to obey her body. Go back to sleep, go back to sleep. Forget what your head and your mind are telling you. You need to sleep now. Sleep, sleep, Cecilie, sleep. It was for this reason that the doctor had prescribed her the pills. Cecilie had been against it; she had never taken sleeping pills in her life. She didn’t like medication. She liked to be alert. She hated the thought of something controlling her body. Cecilie Mykle was very keen on being in control. Underneath the duvet, her hand reached out again, automatically trying to switch off the alarm clock, at 6.15, as always, but it had still not begun to ring. A tiny part of her brain wondered why, but it was quickly overruled by the rest of it, which could not care less, swayed by the after effects of the sleeping tablets; she snuggled up under the duvet and pressed her head against the lovely soft pillow.
‘This is not a suggestion, it’s an order,’ her doctor had said. ‘You have to take these pills because you need some sleep. You need to sleep. How many times do I have to tell you before you understand?’
The best doctor in the world. Who knew what she needed and was a bit strict with her, who had told her to take care of herself. Something Cecilie Mykle was not very good at. You have to take care of yourself, people told her this all the time, but Cecilie Mykle thought that was easier said than done. She had grown up with a mother unable to do that, who had always put other people’s needs first; it was a difficult pattern to break.
She was a worrier. That was why she was unable to sleep. She couldn’t remember the last time she had had a good night’s sleep. Her nights were largely restless. She would doze a little, then get up, watch some late-night TV, have a cup of tea and then perhaps catnap for a few minutes before the alarm went off and it was 6.15 again. There were always so many things that could go wrong, and Cecilie was the sort of person who worried more than most.
‘You’re worrying yourself unnecessarily,’ her husband would say, like the time they had bought the terraced house in Skullerud.
‘Are you sure we can afford it?’
‘We’ll manage,’ her husband had said, and he had been right, they had managed fine, especially once he started working on the North Sea oil rigs.
Six weeks on, six weeks off. She missed her husband, of course, the weeks he was away, but the money did come in very handy. And when he was at home, he was at home the whole time. Cecilie Mykle loved her husband. He was perfect; she couldn’t have wished for a better friend or lover. He was not like many of his friends who also worked on the oil rigs; they would come home with money in their pockets and then hit the town. Six weeks at work, six weeks of drinking. No, he was not like them at all. When her husband was at home, he was at home.
Cecilie Mykle stretched her arms towards the ceiling and finally managed to open her eyes. She decided to stay in bed for a little bit longer while she came round. She felt lethargic, but still also incredibly rested, she’d had a good night’s sleep, her skin was warm, her body soft and calm. She hadn’t had any dreams last night either, like she had done recently – violent, almost feverish, nightmares – but last night, nothing. Just total relaxation.
She was awake now; suddenly, she surfaced in the dark bedroom and started to feel anxious again. What time was it really? She reached out to switch on the bedside lamp. It wouldn’t come on. Why was everything dark? And cold? Had they had a power cut? Cecilie Mykle pressed the button which lit up the small alarm clock and got a shock when she realized what time it was. A quarter to ten? Gosh, she should have been up hours ago. She should have taken Karoline to nursery by now. Cecilie swung her legs over the edge of the bed, but stayed sitting with her head buried in her hands. It felt like a lump of lead. She could barely keep her eyes open. She staggered to the light switch by the door. She tried turning on the ceiling light, but it wouldn’t come on either. The house was cold and strangely quiet. Cecilie fumbled her way to the window and opened the curtains. Spring light poured into the bedroom, enough for her to see by.
Cecilie stumbled out into the passage. She had to wake Karoline. Her legs were heavy, almost incapable of supporting her as she walked along the dark passage. She had forgotten to put on socks and the floor was cold. Cecilie felt her way along the wall down to Karoline’s room.
‘Karoline?’
Her voice was feeble and weak; it, too, refused to wake up.
‘Karoline, are you awake?’
There was no reply from her daughter’s bedroom. At a quarter to ten? Karoline did not normally have a lie-in. She was usually up by seven, or at least awake. Often, she would pad to her parents’ bedroom with her teddy. Best time of the day, really. Quiet mornings in bed with Karoline and her teddy.
‘Karoline?’
Cecilie continued to feel her way around, her eyes slowly acclimatizing to the darkness. Suddenly, she felt something wet and sticky under her feet. What on earth? She stopped and raised her foot. Carefully, she touched the sole. There was something yucky on the floor. But she had washed it only the other day. Cecilie made her way gingerly across the sticky floor and entered Karoline’s room. She pressed the light switch, but again the light did not come on.
‘Karoline?’
She quickly crossed the floor and opened the curtains. The light streamed into the room, and it was at this point that Cecilie Mykle started to worry in earnest.
‘Karoline?’
She couldn’t believe her eyes. Karoline was not in her bed. There was blood on the floor. She could not be awake. She had stepped in the blood. So she must be dreaming. She was still asleep. She should never have taken that sleeping tablet, but her doctor had insisted. Cecilie Mykle stayed in her daughter’s bedroom while she waited to wake up. She didn’t like this dream. Karoline was not in her bed. It was a quarter to ten in the morning. There was blood on the floor. There was no electricity. The house was dark. She had goose pimples on her arms under her jumper. She really wanted to wake up now. The alarm clock will go off any moment now, she thought, and chewed her lip.
This is just a dream.
Cecilie Mykle was in shock. She didn’t even hear the distant ringing of the telephone.
Chapter 30
Mia Krüger sat by the window in Kaffebrenneriet in Storgata, drinking her second cortado of the day. She had eaten a scone and drunk a glass of orange juice and was suffering from a surprisingly bad hangover, and yet her body was slowly but surely starting to recover after last night’s excesses with Susanne. Normally, she never read the newspapers, but for some reason she had done so today, even though she found the front pages tasteless. ‘The Babes in the Wood Murders’ seemed to be what the papers had decided to call them. Mia hated it when the media did this, coined names and logos for murder investigations, the hunt for missing people, civil unrest, war, or indeed any form of tragedy. Did they not realize the effect it had on their readers? Did they not care that they fuelled people’s fears, terrified them? Damn them all to hell. Why was there no law against it? No punishment? And, worse, did these idiots not understand that they were giving the culprit exactly what they wanted: the oxygen of publicity? Did they not know this? That it was frequently this very attention such people were seeking? Extra column inches in all the newspapers. ‘Babes in the Wood’. Sometimes, she wondered how reporters came up with such phrases. There were interviews with neighbours, friends and staff from the nursery. ‘Police have no leads.’ She wondered how the media knew that. Photographs of Pauline on the beach and on her birthday with her family. Pictures of Johanne skating or in the swimming pool with her grandfather. Mia shook her head, and yet she was drawn to the newspapers. ‘No suspects.’ ‘A nation in mourning.’ Pictures from the funerals. Images of flowers and candles at the crime scene. Letters and cards for the girls. Children crying. Adults crying.
She put down the newspaper and had just knocked back the last of her cortado when her mobile rang.
‘Yes? Mia speaking.’
‘It’s Holger. Where are you?’
‘Kaffebrenneriet, Storgata. What is it?’
‘
Another girl has gone missing.’
Mia felt the hairs on her arms stand up. She put on her leather jacket and was out of the door in a matter of seconds.
‘Are you at the office?’
‘I’m just about to leave.’
‘Pick me up outside 7–11 in Pløensgate.’
‘OK.’
Mia ended the call and ran down towards Youngstorvet. Damn. Number three. Three lines on the nail of her left little finger. No, not this time. This time they had a head start. Another girl had gone missing, but they were on the case. There would be no more lines. Mia did not know who this new girl was, but she had already made up her mind as she pushed her way through the crowds on her way down Torggata that they would find this girl before it was too late.
She arrived at the corner of Youngstorvet just as Holger’s black Audi drove down Pløensgate. She jumped into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut.
‘Where are we going?’ she panted.
‘Disen,’ Munch replied briefly. ‘Disenveien. The call came in ten minutes ago. Andrea Lyng. She wasn’t in her bed when her father woke up.’
Munch put the flashing blue light on the roof and pressed the accelerator.
‘He has only just woken up?’
She checked the clock on her mobile.
‘So it would seem,’ Munch muttered.
‘Who’s up there?’
‘Kim and Anette. Curry is on his way.’
Munch sounded the horn irritably at a tram and a couple of pedestrians who had failed to get out of his way.
‘Bloody idiots.’
‘She disappeared from her home?’
Munch nodded.
‘How odd. The other two disappeared from their nursery school.’
‘Get out of the bloody way, you muppet.’
Munch sounded the horn again, finally managed to extricate himself from the traffic and headed towards Sinsen.
‘So only the father was at home? Where is the mother?’
‘No idea,’ Munch muttered.
His mobile rang and he answered the call. His voice was brusque. This was not one of his good days.
‘Yes? Damn! Yes, cordon off the area. And send Forensics up there immediately. What? No, I don’t give a toss about that, we have priority. No, of course we’re treating it as a crime scene. We’ll be there in five minutes.’
