The Owl Always Hunts At Night

by Samuel Bjork

  ‘Yes, and what of it? I’m incredibly proud of him. He has done so well for himself.’

  ‘That’s all very touching,’ Mia Krüger said, taking out the envelope she had kept in the inside pocket of her leather jacket. ‘And, under normal circumstances, I would feel very sorry for both of you.’

  The dark-haired investigator opened the envelope and placed the photograph on the table in front of Helene Eriksen.

  Camilla Green.

  Naked on the forest floor.

  With terrified, open eyes.

  Mia looked at Munch again, who nodded to indicate that she should turn on the recorder.

  ‘The time is 18.25. Present in the room is the head of the investigative unit at 13 Mariboesgate, Holger Munch, homicide investigator Mia Krüger and …’

  Helene Eriksen’s face had been almost white when they entered, but it drained of any remaining colour when she saw the photograph Mia had just placed in front of her.

  ‘Your name, date of birth and your current address,’ Mia said, pointing to the tape recorder.

  Several seconds passed, and Mia had to repeat her request before the Nurseries manager was able to open her mouth.

  ‘Helene Eriksen. 25 July 1969. Hurumlandet Nurseries, 3482 Tofte.’

  The words came out slowly between the white lips, while her eyes were still unable to tear themselves away from the horrific photograph.

  ‘You’re entitled to have a lawyer present,’ Mia continued. ‘And if you can’t afford legal advice, you’ll be allocated a lawyer—’

  She was interrupted by a knock on the door; Anette Goli popped her head round and nodded to Munch to indicate that he should join her outside.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked when he had closed the door behind him.

  ‘We have a problem,’ Anette Goli said. ‘His lawyer is here.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He was out of the country.’

  ‘What!’

  Munch frowned.

  ‘Henrik Eriksen. He was out of the country.’

  ‘Out of the country?’ Munch echoed.

  ‘He has a farmhouse in Italy,’ Goli said. ‘Spends every summer there.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘Henrik Eriksen. He wasn’t in Norway when Camilla was murdered.’

  ‘But that’s impossible!’ Munch exclaimed.

  ‘So what do we do?’ the police lawyer wanted to know.

  ‘You and Kim,’ Munch said, having considered his options.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Standard interview. Get as much out of him as you can in, say, twenty minutes, and then we’ll meet back out here.’

  ‘OK.’ Anette Goli nodded briefly as Munch opened the door and went back into the interview room.

  Chapter 67

  Gabriel Mørk was sitting in his office in Mariboesgate, unable to decide what kind of mood he was in. How had they even considered that he might have been involved in this?

  ‘Gabriel?’ said a voice by the door, interrupting his train of thought.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you spare a few minutes?’ It was Ludvig Grønlie. ‘I could do with a fresh pair of eyes.’

  ‘Sure,’ the young hacker said, and followed the older police officer down the corridor and into his office.

  The offices were practically deserted now, had been so all day. The only other staff member left was Ylva, who was chewing gum in front of her screen. Everyone else was down at Grønland.

  ‘What is it?’ Gabriel asked, and took up position behind Grønlie’s chair as Grønlie sat down.

  ‘This film I’ve got,’ Ludvig said.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘From the Natural History Museum. Did you know about that?’

  ‘About what?’ Gabriel said.

  ‘Evidently not.’ Grønlie smiled.

  The older investigator double-clicked on an icon on his desktop and a black-and-white film appeared on his screen.

  The film showed a group of people entering something that could be a gallery or a museum.

  ‘What are we looking at?’

  ‘The Botanical Gardens in Tøyen. Hurumlandet Nurseries’ school trip. To the Natural History Museum.’

  ‘Go on?’ Gabriel said.

  The video was jerky and blurred. Clearly, surveillance-camera footage. A group of people were met by a man with fluffy white hair and shown up some steps.

  ‘So far so good,’ Ludvig said, clicking further on.

  Gabriel peered at the screen.

  ‘Then suddenly, what do you think? Take a look at this.’

  Grønlie turned to Gabriel as the group on the film entered a room with animals in different display cabinets.

  ‘Bit odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘What is?’ Gabriel said.

  ‘Let’s go back a bit,’ Ludvig said, moving the cursor on the screen. ‘Here,’ he said, pressing the stop button. ‘Do you see it now?’

  Gabriel looked at the image but shook his head. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Let’s print it out,’ the older investigator said, pressing a key on the keyboard.

  Gabriel followed Grønlie into the incident room via the printer.

  Ludvig put up the picture he had just printed out next to the others already hanging there. ‘Pretty much everyone is on the CCTV photo, am I right?’ He turned to Gabriel while he pointed at the print-out.

  ‘Helene Eriksen. Paulus Monsen. Isabella Jung.’

  Mørk followed Ludvig’s finger across the picture and nodded.

  ‘So who is this?’

  Ludvig indicated a face on the picture. A face Gabriel did not recognize. A young man in a shirt, with round glasses, who, in contrast to the rest of the group, did not look at the animals on display but had his eyes fixed firmly at the camera.

  ‘I don’t think he’s on our list,’ Gabriel said.

  ‘Well, that’s odd,’ Grønlie said.

  ‘Look, we have everyone here, don’t we? The teachers, Helene Eriksen, Monsen, the girls – but this lad?’

  Gabriel looked up at the picture gallery which Ludvig had made earlier of all the residents, all the teachers, but he could not see this new face anywhere.

  ‘And why is he looking straight at the camera?’

  ‘That is weird,’ Gabriel said.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? A school trip? Everyone is looking at the animals, no matter how bored they might be, but this guy is looking at the camera as if he—’

  ‘Is checking out where it is,’ Gabriel said.

  ‘Now, I might just be suspicious by nature, so that was why I needed a fresh pair of eyes. Does this help us?’

  Gabriel continued to study the new picture on the wall. The eyes behind the glasses, looking up at him, almost surprised, while the attention of the rest of the group was directed at whatever the white-haired guy was pointing at.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the young man in the shirt.

  ‘He’s not on our wall, is he? I mean, you can’t see him, can you?’

  Again Grønlie gestured towards the photographs showing every face at Hurumlandet Nurseries.

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘So I’m not losing my marbles? Starting to miss things?’ Ludvig smiled at him.

  ‘Why on earth is he looking at the camera?’ Gabriel asked.

  ‘Because he wants to know where it is.’

  ‘Definitely,’ Gabriel said, and continued to stare, almost mesmerized, at the unfamiliar face that was looking back at him.

  A young man in a white shirt with round glasses.

  ‘I’m calling Mia,’ Grønlie said, running back to his office to fetch his phone.

  Chapter 68

  The little boy thought the new place was weird, and it took time before he grew used to it, but it got better over time. They did not have quite so many books here, but the walls were thicker, so he couldn’t hear people talking about him at night, and the lady who was in charge was also quite nice. Helene. She did no
t look at him strangely, like people had done in the other places. She treated him like just another young person living here, because there were no small children in this home, not that it mattered. He preferred his own company anyway.

  There were seven teenagers, but only one boy, Mats, and he really liked Mats. Mats reminded him a little of his mum, always talking about the terrible state of the world, and how sick people were in their heads. Mats also liked putting on make-up, not quite like Mum: he put black around his eyes, and he painted his nails with black nail polish. Mats liked everything black. He only ever wore black clothes and had posters on his walls of people playing in bands; they, too, were dressed in black, with white make-up on their faces, and bracelets with spikes. Metal. That was their music. The young boy did not say very much; he would mostly listen while Mats played music in his bedroom while he lectured him. There were many different types of metal. There was speed metal, death metal and, Mats’s personal favourite, black metal. He did not think much of the music – too much howling – but he liked the stories, especially the ones about black metal. About bands sacrificing goats and having naked people crucified on stage, and lyrics about Satan and death.

  When the boy had been there about a year, he felt almost at home. It was not like living with his mum, of course not, yet this place was better than the other one. They had greenhouses and he learned how to look after plants and flowers, and he liked the lessons, too; although he was younger than the other students, he was the cleverest and his teachers would often take him aside after class.

  Have you finished this already?

  I think we’re going to have to get you some new books.

  He liked all the subjects: English, Norwegian, maths, geography; every time he opened a new book it was like encountering a new world, and he could not get enough of it. The boy was especially fond of Rolf, one of the teachers there, the one who praised him the most. Rolf gave him assignments none of the other children got. He would smile broadly every time he completed them. It was Rolf who made sure he got his own laptop – not everyone had one – and for a while he could barely sleep. It was almost as if he did not need sleep, because there was so much to learn. He liked staying up all night surrounded by books and with his laptop, and he could hardly wait until he was given another assignment.

  But, mostly, he liked spending time with Mats. He tried keeping clear of the girls as best he could. He was sure they were exactly like his mum had warned him girls were, smiling on the outside but dishonest and rotten on the inside, so it was best to keep his distance. Mats did not like girls either. In fact, Mats liked nothing except for metal. He loathed books, unless they were about rituals and blood and Satan and how to bring people back from the dead.

  ‘Helene is a moron,’ Mats had said to him one evening in his bedroom, but the boy thought differently.

  He regarded Helene as one of the nicest people he had met since he was taken away from his mum, but he said nothing. He did not want to fall out with Mats, in case Mats would not let him come to his room again.

  ‘But her brother, he’s cool.’

  ‘Henrik? The one with the shop?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mats had smiled.

  ‘Why is he cool?’

  ‘Did you know that they used to belong to a sect?’

  ‘No,’ the boy said, not entirely sure he knew what a sect was, but Mats continued to smile, so it was probably a good thing.

  ‘In Australia,’ Mats went on. ‘When they were kids. A sect called The Family. They experimented on the kids. Made them think that a woman called Ann was their mum. They had to wear the same clothes and have their hair the same way. They were stuffed full of drugs – Anatensol, Haloperidol, Tofranil. Even LSD. Imagine that? Kids getting high on LSD while being locked in small, dark rooms all on their own.’

  The boy, who was now becoming a teenager, did not know what those names meant, but Mats was an expert on medication; he had to take pills every day, though he did not always do so, so there was no doubt that he knew what he was talking about.

  ‘They totally freaked out. It messed with their heads.’ Mats smiled. ‘Especially the brother, Henrik. He believed he was an owl.’

  ‘An owl?’

  ‘The bird of death.’

  The boy was spellbound as Mats spoke.

  About how Henrik, the brother with the shop, who seemed like a normal person, used to glue feathers to his body and perform rituals in a hideout by the fence, killing birds in order to make people come back from the dead.

  ‘It’s a long time ago, but I’m telling you it’s the truth. I hear he’s normal now, but for a while he was completely wacko. Just like you.’

  ‘Like me?’

  He had not understood what Mats had said.

  ‘Yeah, like you. I mean, hello? Locked up with your mum in that house your whole life, never seeing other people? Living with a crazy bitch like her? We’re so alike, you and I. You may look like a dimwit, but in your mind you’re a real sicko, and I like that. Screw normality. An owl, I mean … He glued feathers to his body – how cool is that?’

  The boy had not felt much when Mats took him out on the moors and showed him how to make people come back from the dead. They had taken a small bird from its nest and Mats had strangled it with a shoelace. Then they had placed it in a pentagram of candles while Mats read aloud strange words from one of his books.

  He had not felt very much afterwards either.

  When he had killed Mats.

  With a knife he had stolen from the kitchen. His reaction was more one of curiosity, the way the black kohl eyes stared up at him as the blood spilled across the dark ground.

  Mats had tried to speak, but he had not been able to, just his big eyes staring up at the boy until he finally stopped moving.

  ‘We don’t talk about Mum like that.’

  No emotion. Just vague curiosity. The air had stopped coming out of Mats’s mouth. His eyes did not close, although he was no longer alive. Death. A bit of a let-down, really.

  He didn’t like to look at the bird, though.

  He had carried it carefully through the woods after rolling Mats into a bog and watching as the body disappeared into the black soil, and then he had buried the bird in a beautiful place with flowers and sunlight spilling through the trees. He had made a crucifix from sticks – not an upside-down one, like those he had seen on the posters in Mats’s bedroom, but an ordinary crucifix like the ones you saw in cemeteries – and, later that night, as he crawled under his duvet, he had felt the weight of disappointment. Because it had not worked.

  He had had the same feeling a few years later.

  He was in his mid-teens by then, and his teachers still praised him. Rolf was no longer there, but there were others, and they also gave him books the other teenagers could not read. He had got himself a moped and was able to drive himself anywhere he wanted to go. He had driven back to the house, of course. Back to his mum. The house had been smelly, the windows broken, and animals seemed to have been living there, so he had started to tidy up. When he was not in the classroom, or tending to the plants, he would get on his moped and, after several months, the house was starting to look nice again.

  Same feeling. The bird must have been too small an animal, so he chose a cat the next time. He copied what Mats had done with the candles and the words, but still she had not come back. Then he tried with a dog but that had not worked either.

  The owl. The bird of death.

  He had bought glue from a shop and stolen feathers from a nearby farm where the Nurseries normally bought their eggs, from the cages where the laying hens lived. He had smeared himself with the glue, stuck the feathers on to his skin, arranged the dog’s paws the way Mats had said they needed to be, at certain points in the pentagram based on sketches in his books, but it had not worked either.

  That night, after the dog, he had not felt well. He had lain in his bed, unable to sleep. The dog had had nice eyes. Just like the cat. The boy continued to stare
at the ceiling, and then he made up his mind. Animals – it was not their fault. His mum had been right. People were rotten. But not animals. They just lived in nature. You had to take care of animals. They had never hurt anyone.

  It would have to be a person.

  In order for it to work.

  A dead ringer.

  For his mum.

  Chapter 69

  Miriam Munch was standing in the street below their apartment in Oscarsgate in Frogner, realizing that she no longer knew who she was. Once, she had been a rebellious teenager with no money in the bank who had protested with her friends and clashed with police officers on horseback. These days, she lived with a doctor in an apartment in the smartest part of Oslo, whose entrance had a CCTV camera, the balcony a view of the German Embassy, and she had enough money to buy whatever she wanted. She puffed nervously on her cigarette, feeling butterflies in her tummy.

  She was dressed in black. There was a balaclava in her rucksack. Alive. That was what she felt. Alive and part of something important. It had been a long time. Life in comfortable Frogner was certainly easy, knowing that Marion could play safely without finding used needles in the playground or be mugged on her way to school, but what about her?

  What about Miriam?

  She had not felt this amazing for a long time.

  Miriam decided against lighting another cigarette and scouted for the car that would soon be there.

  A convincing cover story?

  Yes.

  She had already spoken to Julie.

  A break-up with some guy.

  Needing a shoulder to cry on.

  No problem.

  Miriam decided to light another cigarette after all and had almost finished smoking it when the car she had been expecting came round the corner and pulled up in front of her. She threw aside the cigarette and smiled as she got in.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Miriam said. ‘Where’s Ziggy?’

  ‘He got a lift with Geir. They left fifteen minutes ago.’

  ‘Right.’ Miriam nodded.

  ‘So we’re definitely doing this? Are you sure?’

  ‘I can’t wait.’ She smiled and put on her seatbelt as the young man with the round glasses put the car in gear, drove down Uranienborgveien and headed for Hurumlandet.