by Samuel Bjork
From the Camp Skar car park you could walk through the forest up to Øyungen. Feed the ducks. Perhaps put up a tent for the night and see the fish wake up. A car was parked, its engine running, and he felt himself getting irritated. Was it really necessary? Why couldn’t people be considerate? Jonas Olsen got out of his car and went to check the gate into the camp itself. The chain was still in place. The lock was untouched. He scanned the camp area. No sign that anything was amiss. Everything was as it should be. He was about to get back in his car and drive off when he spotted something that made him stop in his tracks. The parked car with its engine idling. It was … odd, wasn’t it? He took a few hesitant steps across the car park. After all, he was the security guard, it was his responsibility to make sure everything was as it should be. Now what was that …?
He didn’t see it properly until he was very close, the smoke seeping out from the open window on the passenger side. Not a lot, just a thin, grey column, but it was there.
‘Hello?’
Jonas Olsen knocked on the windscreen, but there was no one in the car.
‘You shouldn’t leave the engine idling. Please would you …?’
He couldn’t see anyone inside who could answer him. How strange. He knocked on the windscreen yet again.
‘Hello?’
There was no reply. He was a security guard. Was it his responsibility? Yes, it was. Olsen knocked on the windscreen a third time before opening the door and seeing two empty seats filled only by grey smoke.
‘Hello?’
That was when he saw it.
Something was burning.
On the back seat.
A doll’s house?
‘Is anyone here?’
Jonas Olsen could feel it coming now. The fear. The dark water. He quickly withdrew his head from the car, retreated a little, his fingers on the buttons of the radio attached to his breast pocket.
‘Central, this is JO, route KGM. I’m at Skar. Do you copy, over?’
He retreated further from the car; he could feel his heart hammering under his shirt.
‘Central? This is JO. Can you hear me? Over?’
He hadn’t seen it before, but he saw it now. The small gap. The boot. It wasn’t closed properly.
He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help himself.
No.
Jonas Olsen was practically watching his hands from the outside. It was as if it weren’t him who opened the boot.
‘Central? Do you …?’
There was a boy in the boot.
‘Central?’
His eyes wide open.
‘Hello?’
And then it became too much for him.
By the time the voice from the radio finally replied, Jonas Olsen had passed out.
Chapter 31
Mia Krüger was woken up by her mobile. She hadn’t even realized she had been asleep. She had been tossing and turning on her mattress all night, getting up several times. There were images of Vivian Berg on her retina. The delicate, white body half covered by the dark water. Karoline Berg’s desperate eyes, an ocean of grief that had yet to surface. The writing on the wall. The terror in Kurt Wang’s eyes.
Come, Mia, come.
Images of her sister running through a field of yellow wheat.
Again.
They had left her alone for a long time, but now they were back.
She had gone into the room which held the cardboard boxes. Considered opening one of them.
Mia’s album.
Have a look at her grandmother.
That usually made her feel better.
Granny, who had howled at the moon at night, whom the neighbours had called a witch, but to Mia she was the only person who had seemed normal in this crazy world.
You’re not listening, are you?
To yourself?
I thought you were going on holiday?
You know that you’re not well, don’t you, Mia?
Dark thoughts at night and a body that wouldn’t stop shaking. In the end she had been tempted to go to Lorry; it was open until 3 a.m.
Two beers and a Jägermeister would get her to sleep.
Or Charlie Brun’s transvestite club in Tøyen, which was always open.
Some pills just so she could rest.
She had managed to resist, evidently, without quite knowing how. The time on the mobile on her bedside table showed just after seven thirty.
‘Yes?’
‘Awake?’
It was Anette Goli.
The brilliant police lawyer was driven like no one Mia had ever met; and seemed to need neither food nor sleep in order to exist.
‘I am now.’ Mia yawned. ‘What’s happening?’
‘We have another one.’
‘Where?’ Mia got up from her bed and realized that she was already dressed.
She had got dressed, hadn’t she?
So that she could nip down to Charlie’s in Tøyen?
Damn.
‘Maridalen,’ Anette said. ‘In a boot. Looks like another stolen car.’
‘A girl?’ Mia asked as she headed to the bathroom.
‘No. A teenage boy.’
Had she gone down there?
No, she had gone to bed sober.
It had been close, but she had resisted.
‘Needle mark to his chest.’
Mia quickly splashed cold water on her face and felt herself slowly returning to life.
‘Fourteen years old. Ruben Iversen.’
‘We know his identity already?’
‘Yes. His clothes were found in a bag in the front of the car. Mobile and bank card. He was lying undressed in the boot, wearing only swimming trunks.’
‘Say that again?’
Mia took her jacket from the peg.
‘He was lying almost naked in the boot, wearing only swimming trunks, and there was something burning inside the car.’
‘What was burning?’ Mia asked, putting on her shoes.
‘A doll’s house. Are you on your way?’
‘Where are you?’
‘Maridalen. The car park outside Camp Skar.’
‘Has his family been told?’
‘His mother reported him missing late last night. We’re trying to contact her now.’
‘I’m on my way,’ Mia said, and rang off.
Chapter 32
The journalist Erik Rønning was standing some distance behind the cordons up at Camp Skar, regretting not having put on a thick jumper under his camel coat. Spring? It was supposed to be spring, wasn’t it? Well, clearly not. He didn’t normally work on stories like this one. He was a feature journalist and most comfortable indoors, preferably in front of the fireplace, back in his flat in Frogner, ideally with a glass of brandy and a cigar by the keyboard. Rønning had won a SKUP award some years ago for a series of articles about the homeless in Oslo, although he had rarely stepped outside to write it. That was the reason he now found himself up here. His boss, Geir Grung, editor of Aftenposten, had summoned him to his office some months ago, to find out if the rumours going round the office were true, if he had really just sent a photographer out to take pictures of destitute people and then invented the stories. Were the interviews fake? Were those tear-jerking stories which the paper had run as a series in its weekend edition pure fiction?
Erik Rønning had neither admitted nor denied anything – that was his specialty. He could have been a politician if he had been interested in other people, but he wasn’t. The twenty-seven-year-old reporter knew perfectly well that if it came out that he had made up the stories, it would seriously damage the newspaper’s credibility, so he hadn’t worried all that much. He had banked on them wanting to save their own skins, and he had been right. Nevertheless, as a punishment of sorts, he had been dispatched to cover stories like this. Bodies turning up in mountain lakes dressed in ballet costumes. In sleazy hotel rooms. Was there a link? The police had said no, but you couldn’t trust them. Now there was a third body in a car par
k at one of Oslo’s most popular beauty spots. They hadn’t been told who it was yet. A junkie, presumably. Someone killed by a jealous boyfriend. Erik Rønning didn’t really care.
Unless …
He tightened the coat around himself. He should have worn a woolly hat too. He had thought about it at home in front of the mirror but had decided against it. Hats always ruined his hair. He had opted for a thin, grey cashmere jumper with a roll-neck which went well with the camel coat and a pair of brown shearling gloves that were short enough to show off the Breitling watch he had recently bought himself. It was the one advertised by Leonardo DiCaprio. He was rather proud of it. Fortunately, he had been smart enough to wear a pair of thin, wool long johns under his suit trousers. After all, he lived in Norway. For now. Maybe Monaco one day? It had been at the back of his mind when he bought some shares some months earlier. Across the street, he saw a small woman get out of a car.
Mia Krüger?
That would mean Munch was up here too. The big guns? Perhaps the body in the car park wasn’t just some drunk who had frozen to death or a student who had taken their own life. Mia and Munch? First the ballet dancer, then the jazz musician and now this? Were the three deaths connected after all? Rønning smiled to himself and felt mildly intrigued. Was there really a … serial killer at large? Now that would be worth covering. A proper story for a journalist of his calibre. Maybe his luck hadn’t deserted him after all. Rønning ploughed his way through the crowd and found Ole Lund, a reporter from VG.
‘What’s happening?’ Rønning asked.
‘We don’t know very much yet,’ Lund said, ‘but there’s a rumour that it’s a teenage boy.’
Rønning took out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.
‘A student?’
‘Don’t know,’ Lund said. ‘It might be.’
‘What’s happening?’ a new arrival wanted to know.
She was from Dagbladet. Vibeke something or other. Rønning couldn’t remember exactly, but she was a babe. He had tried it on once with her at the hotel bar of the Grand. He had liked the way her dress looked from the back.
‘A student,’ Rønning lied. ‘Suicide, most likely.’
‘Really?’ Vibeke the babe said. ‘They didn’t say anything about that on the police radio.’
‘What did they say, then?’ Lund asked eagerly.
‘That he was fourteen years old.’ Vibeke looked at Rønning. ‘Isn’t that what you have?’
‘No idea. I’ve only just arrived.’ Rønning grinned and lit his cigarette.
‘Wanker.’
Vibeke shook her head and walked on towards the cordons.
‘Do we have a name yet?’
‘Ruben Iversen, they say, but it hasn’t been confirmed yet. Fourteen years old.’
Another new arrival, a young man with glasses.
He was from Dagsavisen.
‘Who told you that?’ Lund asked.
‘I have my sources.’ The young man grinned.
Rønning took out his mobile and sent a quick text message.
Victim probably a Ruben Iversen, fourteen. Find his school? Send someone there? Family, fellow students, teachers, etc.?
Suddenly the crowd of reporters stirred.
‘Goli!’
‘Anette!’
A black car heading out through the cordons. Flashlights and eager hands, panting tongues, shoulders carrying TV cameras.
‘Goli!’
‘Anette!’
‘Is this connected to the other victims?’
Bingo.
So he wasn’t alone in thinking there was a possible link.
Great. A challenge. Time to show them what he was made of. He wasn’t prepared to stand here prostituting himself like just another hack.
Erik Rønning retreated to a place where he had a better view. He might be lazy, but he wasn’t stupid. There was a reason why he had been the person closest to the editor. Grung’s favourite. He had enjoyed it, he really had, and it had hurt a little, the look Grung had given him when the old newspaperman realized that his award-winning star pupil had hoodwinked them all.
Get over it. Now was not the time to sulk. Now was the time to think outside the box. He walked a little further away to see if there was another route up to the car park. Munch and Mia, oh yes, they were pros, but the rest of them? The police officers attending the scene? Nothing but jumped-up shopping-centre security guards, the lot of them. Rønning doubted they had managed to secure the crime scene already. The sheep were still clustered in front of the cordons and looking up the road.
Amateurs.
They would never get anywhere.
Erik Rønning smiled to himself, discarded his cigarette and started walking.
Chapter 33
Mia arrived at the car park outside Camp Skar and was met by a worried-looking Munch.
‘Haven’t you slept?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You look like shit.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ Mia said.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Is everything OK?’
‘I’m fine. What have we got?’
‘Another car.’ Munch nodded to the far end of the car park. ‘Stolen. Belongs to a family from Økern. They came back from holiday and their car was gone.’
‘And why are we standing here?’
‘The pathologist wanted to finish first.’
‘Is that the new one?’
Mia indicated a dark-haired woman, standing next to the open boot, who was gesturing eagerly and issuing orders to her team.
‘Lillian Lund,’ Munch said.
‘Hard taskmaster?’
‘She seems OK.’
‘Anette said there was a needle mark?’
‘Yes.’
Mia could see another camera on a tripod facing the back of the car.
‘Have you checked the camera?’
‘Thirteen,’ Munch said quietly.
Mia swore.
‘Does that mean anything to you?’
He turned to her and lit his cigarette.
‘Four, seven, thirteen?’
‘You’re the mathematician,’ Mia said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
‘Lottery numbers?’ Munch said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, nothing. It just bugs me.’
‘What does?’
‘Well, everything, to be honest. These numbers. I hate that he plays games with us.
‘Who found him?’ Mia asked.
‘A security guard. Olsen. He’s in shock. I’ve sent him down to police headquarters. Anette will interview him.’
‘A long time ago?’
‘A couple of hours. Why?’
Mia nodded in the direction of the road.
‘The press got here very quickly.’
Munch shrugged.
‘The sharks can smell blood,’ Mia remarked.
A crime-scene technician crossed the car park. She pulled down her face mask and sighed at Munch.
‘Did you approve of this?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That we won’t get access until the pathologist has finished?’
‘She probably won’t be long.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Have you searched the forest?’ Mia asked.
‘Oh yes, we’re doing that now. And we were about to start on the car.’
‘You carry on working the area around here,’ Munch said. ‘We’ll get access once they’ve finished.’
The crime-scene technician shook her head and muttered something they couldn’t hear as she put her face mask back on and went to join the other technicians.
‘So, a doll’s house?’ Mia said eagerly.
‘According to the security guard. It was burning on the back seat when he arrived.’
‘Have you had a look at it?’
‘Yes, I think it might be very easy to trace.’
‘Why?’
‘It looks handmade. Not
something mass-produced from Toys “R” Us. I’ve seen quite a few of those.’
He flashed a smile.
Of course he had. Marion, his granddaughter, had him wrapped around her little finger.
‘Are we looking into it?’
‘Grønlie is on it.’
Munch took a drag on his cigarette as another technician came towards them. He was about to open his mouth, but Munch beat him to it.
‘We’ll wait,’ he said brusquely. ‘They won’t be long.’
‘Have we cordoned off the whole area?’ Mia asked.
‘I hope so. And, by the way, Ludvig didn’t find anything. He asked me to tell you.’
‘About what?’
‘You asked him to look up cases involving a burning house? Number forty-seven? Seventy-four?’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing, as far as he could see.’
‘Worth a try.’
‘It was a good idea,’ Munch said.
‘It was an obvious lead to follow. The Brothers Lionheart? Their house burned down.’
‘It looks like you’re onto something.’ Munch nodded towards the car.
‘So it was still burning when the security guard arrived?’
‘I think so. Like I said just now, he’s very shaken up.’
‘So what are we talking in terms of timing?’
‘He believes he arrived here around a quarter past six.’
‘And how long would something like that burn for?’
‘It’s impossible to say. If the killer used an accelerant, a couple of hours, perhaps?’
‘So somewhere between three and four in the morning?’
‘Might even have been later.’
‘Right under our noses.’
‘I know,’ Munch said, stubbing out his cigarette.
‘How did he get here?’
‘No idea.’
‘Any buses this early?’
‘No, the first one has just driven past.’
‘So he has his own car?’