by Samuel Bjork
About the Book
When a young woman is found dead, the police are quick to respond. But what they find at the scene is unexpected. The body is posed, the scene laboriously set. And there is almost no forensic evidence to be found.
Detective Mia Krüger is a woman on the edge – she has been signed off work pending psychological assessment. But her boss has less regard for the rules than he should. Desperate to get Mia back in the office, Holger Munch offers her a deal.
But the usually brilliant Mia is struggling and the team are unable to close the case. Until a young hacker uncovers something that forces them to confront the scope of the murderer’s plans and face the possibility that he may already be on the hunt for a second victim.
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
One Friday…
One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Two
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Three
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Four
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Five
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Six
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Seven
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Eight
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Nine
Chapter 80
About the Author
Also by Samuel Bjork
Copyright
THE OWL ALWAYS HUNTS AT NIGHT
Samuel Bjork
Translated from the Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund
One Friday in the spring of 1972, as the vicar of Sandefjord was locking up his church for the day, he received an unexpected visit that made him keep his office open a little longer.
He had never seen the young woman before, but he recognized the young man. He was the eldest son of one of the most respected men in the town, a shipping magnate who was not only one of the richest men in Norway but also a staunch supporter of the church, a man whose generosity had, among other things, made it possible ten years ago to commission the huge altarpiece in roughly carved mahogany which depicted seventeen scenes from the life of Jesus Christ, an altarpiece of which the vicar was extremely proud.
The young couple had a special request. They wished to get married, but they wanted the vicar to perform the ceremony with no one else present. That in itself was not unusual, but the reason behind their request was so peculiar that at first the vicar thought it had to be a joke. Then again, he knew the shipping magnate well, knew how religious and conservative the old man was, and began to realize that the couple were indeed serious. The shipping magnate had been in poor health recently, and rumour had it that he was on his deathbed. The young man now sitting in front of him would soon inherit a huge fortune; his father, however, had attached one condition to his son’s inheritance: no outside blood could be mixed with the family’s. The woman his heir chose to marry must under no circumstances have children from previous relationships. And herein lay the problem. The young woman with whom the son of the shipping magnate was deeply in love did have children from an earlier marriage. A little girl aged two and a boy aged four. The children would be hidden away, and the vicar could then quietly marry the couple so that the bride would appear to comply with the shipping magnate’s demand, and no one would be tempted to try to discover the truth. Was that possible?
This was the plan the couple had come up with: the young man had a distant relative in Australia. She had promised to look after the children until the shipping magnate died. A year, maybe two, and then the children would be brought back to Norway. You never knew, the shipping magnate might reach the pearly gates sooner than expected. What did the vicar think? Could he find room in his heart to help them in their hour of need?
The vicar pretended to ponder their request, but the truth was he had already made up his mind. The envelope the young man had discreetly placed on the desk was fat, and why not help the young lovers? After all, the old shipping magnate’s demand was utterly unreasonable, wasn’t it? The vicar agreed to wed the couple, and the following week, in a small ceremony held in a closed church in front of the magnificent altarpiece, they were married.
Less than a year later, in January 1973, the vicar received another visit; this time, the young woman came on her own. She was clearly distressed and told him she did not know where else to turn. The old shipping magnate had died, but something was wrong. She had not heard a word about her children. She had been promised pictures, letters, but nothing had arrived, not a single word, and she was starting to doubt if this relative in Australia even existed. The woman also confided in him that the man she had married had not turned out to be what she thought he was. They were no longer on speaking terms, nor did they share a bed; he had secrets, dark secrets, things she could not make herself say out loud; she could hardly bear even thinking about them. Could the vicar help? The vicar calmed her down, assured her that of course he would help her, that he would think things over, and he asked her to return in a few days.
The next morning the young woman was found dead, slumped over the wheel in her car in a deep ravine close to the shipping family’s luxurious home on Vesterøya, outside the centre of Sandefjord. The newspapers hinted that the woman had been intoxicated while driving, and the police did indeed treat her death as a tragic accident.
After assisting the family with the funeral arrangements, the vicar decided to pay the young shipping magnate a visit. He explained, as was the truth, that the young woman had sought him out the day before the accident. That she had been anxious about her children. That something, well, that something did not add up. The young shipping magnate listened and nodded. Explained that, sadly, his wife had been very sick recently. On medication. Drinking excessively. After all, the vicar himself had seen the tragic outcome. Then the young shipping magnate wrote a f
igure on a piece of paper which he slid across the desk. Surely this town was too small for the vicar? Would he not be better off serving the Lord in a different location, possibly nearer the capital? The vicar rose from the chair, and that was the last time he ever saw the young and powerful shipping magnate.
A few weeks later he packed his suitcase.
He never set foot in Sandefjord again.
The little girl lay as still as she could on the sofa under the blanket while she waited for the other children to fall asleep. She had made up her mind. She would do it tonight. She would be scared no longer. Wait no longer. She was seven years old and very grown up. She would leave once it started to get dark. She had not swallowed tonight’s sleeping pill. Just pushed it under her tongue, where she had kept it when she showed Aunt Julia what a good girl she had been.
‘Show me.’
Tongue out.
‘Good girl. Next.’
Her brother had been doing it for a long time. Ever since the time they had locked him in the beaten-earth cellar. Every night he would hide the pill under his tongue without swallowing it.
‘Show me.’
Tongue out.
‘Good boy. Next.’
Three weeks in the dark for refusing to say sorry. All the children knew that he had done nothing wrong, but the grown-ups had put him in the cellar all the same. Since that time he had changed. Every night he would slip the pill under his tongue without swallowing it and, as her own pill started to take effect and she grew sleepy, she would see his shadow tiptoe out of the room and disappear.
The little girl waited until she could hear that the other children were asleep before she sneaked out of the house. It was winter now and still warm, though the twilight had settled softly between the trees. The little girl walked barefoot across the yard, keeping to the shadows until she was hidden by the trees. Having made sure that she had not been spotted, she had run along the track between the big trees down towards the gate that bore the wording ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted.’ This was where she had decided to start her search.
She had heard her brother and one of the other boys whisper about this. An old, ramshackle shed, a small, forgotten cabin on the far side of the estate, but she had never seen it herself. They were woken up at six o’clock in the morning every day and went to bed at nine o’clock every night. Always the exact same routine, no variations, with only two fifteen-minute breaks from lessons, homework, yoga, laundry and all the chores that had to be done. The little girl smiled at the sound of the crickets, and she felt the soft grass tickle her feet as she veered from the path and moved cautiously along the fence towards the place which she, in her mind’s eye, had decided must be the likely location of the cabin. For some reason, she was not scared. She felt almost light; the terror would not set in until later; right now she felt happy, free as a bird, all alone with her thoughts in the beautiful forest which smelt so good. She smiled broadly and trailed her fingers over a plant that looked like a star; it was almost like being in one of the dreams she often had when the pills they were given were not very strong. She ducked under a branch and did not even jump when she heard rustling in the bushes a short distance away. Perhaps a koala bear had ventured down from the trees. She giggled to herself and wondered what it would be like to pat one. She knew that they had sharp claws, and that they were not cuddly at all, but she tried to imagine what it must feel like, anyway, the fluffy, warm fur between her fingers, the soft nose tickling her neck. She had almost forgotten why she had come outside, then suddenly remembered and stopped in her tracks when the wall of the cabin came into view only a short distance ahead of her. The little girl tilted her head and studied the grey wooden boards. So it was true. There was a place in the forest. A place where you could hide. Be on your own. She crept cautiously closer to the hut and felt a delightful tingling under her skin as she approached the door.
The little girl did not know that the sight which awaited her would change her for ever, that it would haunt her every single night for years to come: under the blanket on the hard sofa, on the plane crossing the globe after the police discovered the crying children, under the duvet in the soft bed in a new country, where the sounds were different. She knew nothing about this as she reached out her hand towards the wooden handle and slowly opened the creaking door.
It was dark inside. It took a few seconds before her eyes allowed her to see properly, but there was no doubt. At first just an outline, then everything came into focus; he was inside.
Her brother.
He wore no clothes. He was completely naked. Completely naked, and yet his body was covered by … feathers? He was curled up in a corner, a birdlike, crooked creature from another world, with something in his mouth. A small animal. A mouse? Her brother was covered in feathers and held a dead mouse between his teeth.
This was the image that would change her life. Her brother turned slowly and looked at her, his eyes filled with wonder, as if they did not know who she was. The light fell through the filthy window across his feather-clad hand, which was moving gradually through the air. His mouth turned into a grin over glistening white teeth as he took the mouse out of his mouth, locked his dead eyes on to hers and said: ‘I’m the owl.’
ONE
Chapter 1
2012
Tom Petterson, a botanist, took the camera bag from his car and paused to enjoy the view across the calm fjord before heading up to the woods. It was early October and the cool Saturday sunshine bathed the landscape around him in a pretty glow, soft rays falling across red and yellow leaves which would soon be shed to make way for winter.
Tom Petterson loved his job. Especially when he was able to work outdoors. He had been hired by Oslo and Akershus County to register findings of Dracocephalum, or dragonhead as it was also known, a plant threatened by extinction but which grew in the woodlands around Oslo Fjord. He had received a fresh tip-off via his blog, and that was his task for today: log the number and exact location of newly discovered specimens of this very rare plant.
Dragonhead grew to a height of ten to fifteen centimetres and had blue, dark blue or purple flowers which would wither in the autumn, leaving behind a cluster of brown seeds reminiscent of a cereal grass. The plant was not only rare; it was also home to the even rarer dragonhead sap beetle, a tiny metallic-blue beetle which fed only on these flowers. The miracles of nature, Tom Petterson thought, and could not help smiling as he left the path and followed the route which an observant amateur biologist had sent him. Sometimes – he never said it out loud, because he had been brought up to believe that there was absolutely no God, his parents had been insistent on that, but even so – he could not help marvelling at it: the wonder of creation. The delicate relationship between all things, from the smallest to the biggest. Birds flying south every autumn to nest, vast distances to the same place every year. The leaves changing colour every autumn, turning the trees and the ground into a living work of art. No, he would never say it out loud, but the thought would often cross his mind.
He turned right between two tall spruces and followed a brook up towards the location where the plants were supposed to be, smiling to himself again.
He crossed the brook and came to a complete standstill when he heard rustling in the shrub in front of him. Petterson raised his camera ready to shoot. A badger? Was that what he had heard? This shy animal was nowhere near as common as people thought. A good picture of a badger would be great for his blog, and it would make a nice story, some dragonheads and a badger, the perfect Saturday trip. He followed the noise and soon found himself in a small clearing, but was disappointed not to see any animals.
But there was something in the middle of the clearing.
A naked body.
A girl.
A teenager?
Tom Petterson was so shocked that he dropped his camera and didn’t notice it falling into the heather.
There was a dead girl in the clearing.
Feathers?
Dear Lord.
There was a naked teenage girl in the forest.
Surrounded by feathers.
A white lily in her mouth.
Tom Petterson spun around, stumbled through the dense vegetation, found the path, ran as fast as he could back down to his car and called the police.
Chapter 2
Homicide investigator Holger Munch was sitting in his car outside his former home in Røa, deeply regretting having agreed to come over. He had lived in the white house with his then wife, Marianne, until ten years ago, and he had not been inside since. The fat investigator lit a cigarette and rolled down the window of the car. He had had his annual health check a few days ago, and the doctor had recommended, yet again, that he cut down on fatty food and quit smoking, but the fifty-four-year-old police officer had absolutely no intention of doing so, especially not the latter. Holger Munch needed cigarettes in order to think, and thinking was what he enjoyed more than anything.
Holger Munch loved chess, crossword puzzles, maths conundrums – anything that stimulated his brain cells. He would often sit in front of his laptop, chatting to friends about chess games, or solving brainteasers. Just now he had received an email from his friend Juri, a professor from Minsk he had met online some years ago.
There is a metal pole in a lake. Half the pole is in the seabed. A third of it is under water. Eight metres of the pole protrudes above the water. What’s the total length of the pole? Best wishes, J.
Munch pondered the answer and was about to reply to the email when he was interrupted by his mobile ringing. He checked the display. Mikkelson. His boss at Oslo Police’s headquarters in Grønland. Munch let the mobile ring for a few seconds; he considered taking the call but ultimately decided to ignore it. He pressed the red button and returned the mobile to his pocket. Family time now. That was the mistake he had made a decade ago. He had not spent enough time with his family. He had worked round the clock and, even when he was at home, his mind had been on other things. Because of that he now found himself outside the house where Marianne now lived with another man.