by Samuel Bjork
“Let us pray,” the pastor said, and bowed his head.
Soon the small room was full of murmuring voices.
“‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.’”
“Amen,” Lukas said again. He could not help himself.
Porta Caeli, Heaven’s Gate. And now they were here to prepare for the day that would soon arrive.
The pastor opened the door and let out all the children. All except Rakel. He always kept Rakel back for an extra chat. Perhaps it was like the lamb that had gotten separated from the flock. Of course it was. The lost sheep and the shepherd. Yet again Lukas felt bad for having doubted the pastor’s wisdom.
“I think that Rakel needs a little time alone with God and with me,” the pastor said, and he signaled to Lukas to leave the room.
Lukas nodded, smiled, and left.
“Make sure that no one comes in and disturbs us, would you, Lukas?”
“Of course,” Lukas said with a bow.
He closed the door softly behind him. It had started to grow dark outside now; he could see stars in the sky. He smiled broadly to himself and felt another warm rush through his veins. That was where they were going. To heaven. He could hardly wait. He was so looking forward to it. Indeed, it was hard to describe how excited he was. A huge, wonderful, constantly tingling feeling from the top of his head to the tips of his fingers and into his toes. Turquoise rivers and houses made from gold. Was that really possible? That he could be so blessed? Lukas folded his arms across his chest, still grinning from ear to ear, and he started humming a new hymn he had just taught himself.
38
It was undoubtedly the longest minute in Mikkel Wold’s life. And the shortest. The shortest and the longest minute. It was as if time had stopped. And yet it was slipping away between his fingers. Time had acquired a new meaning. Time had no meaning. They spent the first five seconds just staring at one another. Mikkel stared at Silje, whose jaw had dropped and whose eyes looked as if they’d just seen a UFO. Silje stared desperately at Grung, like a young member of the flock seeking comfort from one of the older ones, but there was no help to be found in Grung. The normally resourceful editor stared alternately at the cell phone lying on the table between them and Mikkel Wold, who was now staring at Erik Rønning.
Erik had ground to a halt. He was no longer functioning. There was not a single movement or expression to be found in his face. The rubber ball sat half squeezed in his hand. His mouth was half open. A witty or sarcastic comment had stopped on its journey out into the room and was now going back inside his head. All four of them. Dumbstruck. Frozen. In total shock. So went the first five seconds.
The next fifteen seconds were the total opposite. They all started talking over one another simultaneously. Like four children in a tunnel who had just realized that the freight train was coming toward them and that they could not get off the tracks, that there was just one way out and that was to run, even though deep down they all knew that it could only end in tragedy, but still they ran, out of instinct. Random words bounced around the room.
“Christ Almighty.”
“We have to pick one.”
“Jesus.”
“What if it’s a hoax?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“But what the hell. We can’t just . . . ?”
“What if we don’t pick one?”
“Oh, my God.”
“We have to pick one.”
“We can’t.”
“This can’t be happening.”
“Grung?”
“Mikkel?”
“What are we going to do?”
“We can’t kill another human being.”
“I think I’m going to throw up. I feel sick.”
“We can save a human being.”
“Erik?”
“Silje?”
“What happens if we do nothing?”
“They both die.”
“We can’t kill a little girl.”
“Shit.”
“We can save a little girl.”
“Shit.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Shit.”
Twenty seconds had passed now. The clock in the office had no second hand. It still said 12:16. It was not helping. It did not count the seconds. That was the one thing they needed right now, not hours, not minutes, just seconds. The next ten were spent trying to work out how much time had passed. At this point panic was spreading around the room like wildfire.
“How much time has passed?” Silje’s face was deathly pale. “How much time is left?”
Grung had stood up and was resting the palms of his hands against the table. “Did someone make a note of the time?”
Mikkel Wold looked at his phone, at the clock on the wall. Without the second hand, the numbers might as well have been painted on the wall. Four children on the railway tracks in a tunnel who can feel the vibrations of the train thundering toward them.
“Let’s not waste time working out how much time has passed!” Erik said tightly.
He had gotten up, too, and banged his fist against the table. Once. Twice. Three times.
Grung had moved his hands from the table and started pulling at his hair. “How much time has passed?”
This part took ten seconds. By now thirty seconds had passed.
“We have to think now!” Erik shouted. “There’s no point shouting over each other.”
“We can’t just shout each other down!” Silje shouted.
“We must decide!” Mikkel Wold shouted.
“What are we going to do?” Grung shouted, still tearing his hair out.
“Everyone calm down!” Erik shouted.
“Let’s all calm down!” Silje shouted.
By now forty seconds had passed. Every single one of the last twenty seconds felt like an entire minute in itself. Or an hour. Or a whole year. It was as if the hands had stopped moving and yet were running away at the same time. Erik was the first person to make a sensible suggestion.
“Let’s vote.”
“What?”
“Don’t say anything. We’re voting now. Hands up, everyone who thinks we ought to do something.”
Erik held up his hand. Grung held up his hand. Mikkel Wold held up his hand without quite knowing why, his reaction pure reflex. Silje’s hands remained on the desk.
Forty-nine seconds had passed.
“Three against one.”
“But,” Silje protested, but Erik was not listening to her.
“Hands up, everyone who votes to save Karoline.”
“You mean kill Andrea?” Silje wailed.
“Hands up!” Erik shouted.
By now fifty-three seconds had passed.
“Hands up if you think we ought to save Karoline!” Erik shouted again, desperate now. The train was nipping at his heels—this was the only way out, make it stop or derail it.
He raised his hand and stared at Grung. Grung copied him and looked desperately at Silje.
“No!” Silje sobbed. “No, no, no!”
Fifty-seven seconds had passed.
Grung and Erik were standing with their hands in the air now. They both looked at Mikkel Wold.
“Yes or no?” Erik demanded.
Mikkel Wold tried to raise his arm from his lap, but it refused to move. It felt leaden. His arm had never been that heavy before. It refused to obey him. Or maybe that was exactly what it did. His brain didn’t know.
Fifty-nine seconds had pas
sed.
“Come on!” Erik roared. “Do we save Karoline or not?”
“We kill Andrea!” Silje sobbed. “We can’t do that!”
“Yes or no?” Grung bellowed.
He had clumps of hair in his hand, which was raised in the air. Mikkel Wold tried to lift his hand again, but it was still stuck to his lap.
Then his phone rang.
The room fell completely silent. Their time was up. The phone rang again. Mikkel Wold was staring at it, yet he had no idea where it was. He could not see it clearly. It could have been in another room. Or on the moon. He did not know what to do. Finally Erik Rønning leaned over and pressed the screen.
“Hello again,” the metallic voice said.
There was total silence around the table.
“I’m very excited,” the voice said. “What did you decide?”
None of them were capable of uttering a single word.
“Is anyone there?” the voice asked.
Silje looked at Grung, who looked at Erik, who looked at Mikkel Wold, who looked at his fingers.
The metallic voice cackled. “Has the cat got your tongue? I need an answer now. Time is running out. Tick-tock.”
Erik Rønning cleared his throat. “We . . .”
“Andrea?” the chilling voice asked. “Or Karoline? Who gets to go home? One girl dies, one girl lives. How hard can it be?”
“They both live!” Silje sobbed.
The metallic voice laughed again. “Oh, no, Miss Olsen, that’s not how we play. One lives, one dies. You get to decide who lives and who dies. It feels good, doesn’t it? Being master of life and death. It’s a bit like being God. Isn’t it fun to play God, Rønning?”
The room fell completely silent again. The seconds crawled past at a snail’s pace. Mikkel Wold’s brain had stopped working. Silje was hugging herself. Grung was standing up with both hands in the air. Erik Rønning opened his mouth and was just about to say something.
“Right,” the cold voice said. “Both of them it is. It’s a shame, really, but if that’s what you want, who am I to argue? Thanks for playing.”
“No!” Silje cried out, lunging for the phone with both hands, a last desperate attempt to knock some humanity into the icy, metallic being, but it was too late.
The voice had already gone.
39
Mia Krüger was sitting on the smoking terrace watching Munch destroy his lungs. They had just finished today’s briefing, and Munch was in a particularly bad mood.
“How is that possible?” he kept repeating, rubbing his eyes.
None of the team had slept much in the past week, but Munch looked as if he might have slept even less than the others. Mia had been waiting for the right moment to tell him what was on her mind, but she was having second thoughts. She couldn’t be sure. It was just a hunch. But a hunch that had grown stronger as the day went by.
“How is that possible?” Munch said again, lighting his next cigarette with his current one.
“What are you talking about?” Mia said.
“Eh?” Munch grunted, turning to her.
When he realized who he was talking to, his eyes softened.
“All of it,” he said, rubbing his eyes again. “Surely someone must have seen them. Two six-year-old girls don’t just vanish into thin air.”
“Have we had a ransom demand yet?”
“We’ve got nada. The families have offered a reward of half a million, I believe. You’d have thought that amount of money would make someone come forward.”
“Will they increase it to a million?”
Munch nodded. “They’re announcing it tomorrow. We’ll just have to cross our fingers.”
“And hope that not every nutjob in the world jams our switchboard,” Mia said.
“That’s the risk we run.” Munch sighed, taking a long drag of his cigarette. “Did you manage to contact Benjamin Bache?”
“I’m meeting him at four-thirty at the theater. He could only spare me half an hour. I think he’s doing Karius and Bactus, the Tooth Trolls as well as rehearsing Hamlet. Do you want to come along?”
Munch shook his head. “No, you take that one. Does he live in his great-grandmother’s apartment? Is that the address where the bills are sent? You know the drill.”
“No problem,” Mia said.
“I just refuse to believe it,” Munch said. “Someone must have seen something. Our killer getting in and out of a car? Going into or out of a cabin? In or out of a basement? The girls have to be fed—our killer buying extra food? Our killer . . .” He continued to stare at the tip of his cigarette.
“If it’s so well planned, then we need a lucky break. You must be aware of that,” Mia said quietly.
“And it does seem well planned, doesn’t it?” Munch agreed.
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Mia said. “It could have been years in the preparation, for all the evidence we have.”
“And we know what that means,” Munch said. “The girls will be dead if we don’t find them soon.”
Mia said nothing. She, too, stayed where she was, staring down at the street. Sometimes she envied the people down there. Normal people. Who owned a corner shop or bought shoes for their kids. Who did not have to deal with stuff like this. She braced herself for what she had to say. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said to Munch.
“Spit it out,” he said.
Mia paused as she struggled to find the right words.
“What is it?” Munch urged her.
“I think that you’re involved,” she said at length.
“Involved?”
“I think you were part of the planning.”
“What are you talking about, Mia?”
They were interrupted by a timid Gabriel Mørk, who popped his head through the door to the terrace.
“Sorry to disturb you, but—”
“What do you want?” Munch barked at him.
“Oh, it’s just . . . Mia, I found . . . well, you know the information you asked for earlier today? What do you want me to do with it?”
“I want you to give all the names to Kim and Ludvig and get them to cross-reference them with the Hønefoss case. I have a hunch we might find something there.”
“Will do,” the young man said, and he quickly closed the door without ever once looking at Munch.
“Just what did you mean when you said that I was part of the planning?”
“I think,” Mia said pensively, “that this is about you.”
“About me?”
“I think so.”
They were interrupted once more, this time by an agitated Anette Goli, who didn’t even bother knocking.
“You have to come right now,” she said to Munch.
“What is it?”
“We have a breakthrough. We’ve just had a call from a lawyer—” She looked at a Post-it note in her hand. “His name is Livold. He represents Aftenposten. They’ve been contacted by the killer.”
“Shit,” Munch said. He got up and stubbed out his cigarette. “When?”
“Several times, I believe. Some days ago. Most recently lunchtime today.”
“And they call us now?” Munch was fuming. “Now? Morons.”
“They’ve clearly spent a day or two taking legal advice.”
“Goddamn fools, where are they?”
“The Postgirobygget building. They’re waiting for us now. I have a car downstairs.”
Munch turned to Mia. “Are you coming?”
She shook her head. “I’m off to see Benjamin Bache.”
“Yes, of course.” He gave her a strange look. “We’ll have to do this later, but soon. I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll meet you at Justisen afterward,” Mia said.
“Fine,” Munch said, and he half ran after Anette out of the office.
40
Benjamin Bache was sitting on the steps outside the National Theater when Mia arrived. He seemed restless; he checked his watch, played with his phone, lit a cigarette, drummed his fingers on his thigh, glanced around as if he were nervous that someone might notice him. It wasn’t the smartest place to hang out if you didn’t want to be seen, Mia thought, stopping behind the statue of Henrik Ibsen so she could spend some time observing Bache.
She had seen him somewhere before, but it took a while before she could place him. Not in Se og Hør—she never read that, couldn’t even be bothered to flick through such magazines when she was at the dentist’s. Not that she had anything against them; it was just that their features held very little interest for her. The press had turned its attention to her when the storm raging around her was at its worst, but she had refused them all. “The truth about Mia Krüger” was pretty much how the journalist had put it when he called her. Could such people even be called journalists? How did it work? Were you a journalist if you wrote about people’s breasts and where they spent their holidays? Surely there had to be some sort of professional standard. She’d declined politely even though he offered her “a great holiday in the sun for you and your boyfriend—are you seeing anyone right now?” Mia chuckled to herself and took a bite of the apple she had bought from the Narvesen kiosk up the street. A holiday in the sun, seriously. Was that the best they could do? Was that their best offer? In return for which she would lay bare her private life? A holiday in the sun?
Benjamin Bache sat with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and one eye narrowed while he tapped the screen on his phone. He put the phone in his pocket, rolled the cigarette between his fingers, went back to drumming his thigh before he suddenly took out the phone again and pressed the screen once more. That was when it came back to her. A scene from a film at the Contemplation by the Sea Festival. He’d been playing a police officer. He was supposed to be her, or rather not her but possibly Kim or Curry, a male detective who was not the boss but a member of a unit. He had seemed uncomfortable in the role. Mia took a last bite of the apple, tossed the core into a trash can, and walked up to the steps.