by Samuel Bjork
Wow, Holger, new jumper? Wow, Holger new jacket? Wow, Holger, have you trimmed your beard?
He unlocked the Volvo, placed his mobile in the cradle and turned it on. He put on the seatbelt and was heading towards the centre of Trondheim when his messages started coming through. He heaved a sigh. One hour with his phone turned off and now it was kicking off again. No respite from the world. It was not entirely fair to say that it was the flight alone which had put him in a bad mood. There had been a lot happening recently, both at work and at home. Holger swiped his finger across the smartphone’s screen; it was a model they had told him to buy, it was all about high-tech these days, the twenty-first-century police force, even in Hønefoss, where he had worked for the last eighteen months for Ringerike Police. This was where he had started his career, and now he had come back. Because of the Tryvann incident.
Seven calls from Oslo Police Headquarters at Grønland. Two from his ex-wife. One from his daughter. Two from the care home. Plus countless text messages.
Holger Munch decided to ignore the world for a little longer and turned on the radio. He found NRK Klassisk, opened the window and lit a cigarette. Cigarettes were his only vice – apart from food, obviously – but they were in a different league in terms of attraction. Holger Munch had no intention of ever quitting smoking, no matter how many laws the politicians came up with and how many SMOKING PROHIBITED signs they put up all over Norway, including on the dashboard of his rental car.
He could not think without a cigarette, and there was nothing Holger Munch loved more than thinking. Using his brain. Never mind about the body, as long as his brain worked. They were playing Handel’s ‘Messiah’ on the radio, not Munch’s favourite, but he was OK with it. He was more of a Bach man himself; he liked the mathematics of the music, not all those emotional composers: Wagner’s bellicose Aryan tempo, Ravel’s impressionistic, emotional landscape. Munch listened to classical music precisely to escape these human feelings. If people were mathematical equations, life would be much simpler. He quickly touched his wedding ring and thought about Marianne, his ex-wife. It had been ten years now, and still he could not make himself take it off. She had rung him. Perhaps she was …
No. It would be about the wedding, obviously. She wanted to talk about the wedding. They had a daughter together, Miriam, who was getting married shortly. There were practicalities to discuss. That was all. Holger Munch flicked the cigarette out of the window and lit another one.
I don’t drink coffee, I don’t touch alcohol. Surely I’m allowed a sodding cigarette.
Holger Munch had been drunk only once, at the age of fourteen, on his father’s cherry brandy at their holiday cottage in Larvik, and he had never touched a drop of alcohol since.
The desire was just not there. He didn’t fancy it. It would never cross his mind to do anything which might impair his brain cells. Not in a million years. Now, smoking, on the other hand, and the occasional burger, that was something else again.
He pulled over at a Shell petrol station by Stav Gjestegård and ordered a bacon-burger meal deal, which he ate sitting on a bench overlooking Trondheim Fjord. If his colleagues had been asked to describe Holger Munch in three words, two of them were likely to be ‘nerd’. ‘Clever’ would possibly be the third, or ‘too clever for his own good’. But a nerd, definitely. A fat, amiable nerd who never touched alcohol, loved mathematics, classical music, crossword puzzles and chess. A little dull, perhaps, but an extremely talented investigator. And a fair boss. So what if he never joined his colleagues for a beer after work, or that he had not been on a date since his wife left him for a teacher from Hurum who had eight weeks’ annual holiday and never had to get up in the middle of the night without telling her where he was going. There was no one whose clear-up rate was as high as Holger Munch’s, everyone knew that. Everyone liked Holger Munch. And, even so, he had ended up back in Hønefoss.
I’m not demoting you, I’m reassigning you. The way I see it, you should count yourself lucky that you still have a job.
He had almost quit on the spot that day outside Mikkelson’s office in Grønland, but he had bit his tongue. What else would he do? Work as a security guard?
Holger Munch got back in the car and followed the E6 towards Trondheim. He lit a fresh cigarette and followed the ring road around the city, heading south. The rental car was equipped with a satnav, but he did not turn it on. He knew where he was going.
Mia Krüger.
He thought warmly about his former colleague just as his mobile rang again.
‘Munch speaking.’
‘Where the hell are you?’
It was an agitated Mikkelson, on the verge of a heart attack, as usual; how that man had survived ten years in the boss’s chair down at Grønland was a mystery to most people.
‘I’m in the car. Where the hell are you?’ Munch snapped back.
‘In the car where? Haven’t you got there yet?’
‘No, I haven’t got there yet. I’ve only just landed, I thought you knew that. What do you want?’
‘I just wanted to check that you’re sticking with the plan.’
‘I have the file here, and I intend to deliver it in person, if that’s what you mean.’ Munch sighed. ‘Was it really necessary to send me all the way up here just for this? How about a courier? Or we could have used the local police?’
‘You know exactly why you’re there,’ Mikkelson replied. ‘And this time I want you to do as you’ve been told.’
‘One,’ Munch said as he flicked the cigarette butt out of the window, ‘I owe you nothing. Two, I owe you nothing. Three, it’s your own fault you’re no longer using my brain for its intended purpose, so I suggest you shut up. Do you want to know the cases I’m working on these days? Do you, Mikkelson? Want to know what I’m working on?’
A brief silence followed at the other end. Munch chuckled contentedly to himself.
Mikkelson hated nothing more than having to ask for a favour. Munch knew that Mikkelson was fuming now, and he savoured the fact that his former boss was having to control himself rather than speak his mind.
‘Just do it.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Munch grinned and saluted in the car.
‘Drop the irony, Munch, and call me when you’ve got something.’
‘Will do. Oh, by the way, there was one thing Ö’
‘What?’ Mikkelson grunted.
‘If she’s in, then so am I. No more Hønefoss for me. And I want our old offices in Mariboesgate. We work away from Police Headquarters. And I want the same team as before.’
There was total silence before the reply came.
‘That’s completely out of the question. It’s never going to happen, Munch. It’s …’
Munch smiled and pressed the red button to end the call before Mikkelson had time to say anything else. He lit another cigarette, turned the radio on again and took the road leading to Orkanger.
Chapter 4
Mia Krüger had been dozing on the sofa under a blanket near the fireplace. She had been dreaming about Sigrid and woken up feeling as if her twin sister were still there. With her. Alive. That they were together again, like they always used to be. Sigrid and Mia. Mia and Sigrid. Two peas in a pod, born two minutes apart, one blonde, the other dark; so different and yet so alike.
All Mia wanted to do was return to her dream, join Sigrid, but she made herself get up and go to the kitchen. Eat some breakfast. To keep the alcohol down. If she carried on like this, she would die prematurely, and that was completely out of the question.
The eighteenth of April.
Ten days left.
She had to hold out, last another ten days. Mia forced down two pieces of crispbread and considered drinking a glass of milk, but opted for water instead. Two glasses of water and two pills. From her trouser pocket. Didn’t matter which ones. One white and one pale blue today:
Sigrid Krüger
Sister, friend and daughter.
Born 11 November 1979. Died 18
April 2002.
Much loved. Deeply missed.
Mia Krüger returned to the sofa and stayed there until she felt the pills starting to kick in. Numb her. Form a membrane between her and the world. She needed one now. It was almost three weeks since she had last looked at herself, and she could put it off no longer. Time for a shower. The bathroom was on the first floor. She had avoided it for as long as possible, didn’t want to look at herself in the large mirror which the previous owner had put up right inside the door. She had been meaning to find a screwdriver. Remove the damn thing. She felt bad enough as it was, and did not need it confirmed, but she had not had the energy. No energy for anything. Just for the pills. And the alcohol. Liquid Valium in her veins, little smiles in her bloodstream, lovely protection against all the barbs that had been swimming around inside her for so long. She steeled herself and walked up the stairs. She opened the door to the bathroom and almost went into shock when she saw the figure in the mirror. It wasn’t her. It was someone else. Mia Krüger had always been slim, but now she looked emaciated. She had always been healthy. Always strong. Now there was practically nothing left of her. She pulled off her jumper and jeans and stood in only her underwear in front of the mirror. Her knickers were sagging. The flesh on her stomach and hips was all gone. Carefully, she ran a hand over her protruding ribs; she could feel them clearly, count them all. She made herself walk right up close to the mirror, caught a glimpse of her own eyes in the rusty, silver surface. People had always remarked on her blue eyes. ‘No one has eyes as Norwegian as yours, Mia,’ someone had said to her once, and she still remembered how proud she had been. ‘Norwegian eyes’: it had sounded so fine. At a time when she wanted to fit in, not be different. Sigrid had always been the prettier; perhaps that explained why it had felt so good? Sparkling blue eyes. Not much of that left now. They looked dead already. Devoid of life and lustre, red where they should be white. She reached down for her trousers, found two more pills in the pocket, stuck her mouth under the tap and swallowed them. Returned to the mirror and tried straightening up her back.
My little Indian, her grandmother used to call her. And she could have been – apart from the blue eyes. An American Indian. Kiowa or Sioux or Apache. Mia had always been fascinated by Indians when she was a child; there had never been any doubt whose side she was on. The cowboys were the baddies, the Indians the goodies. How are you today, Mia Moonbeam? Mia touched her face in the mirror and remembered her grandmother with love. She looked at her long hair. Soft, raven-black hair flowing over her delicate shoulders. She had not had hair as long as this for a long time. She had started to wear it short when she started at Police College. She had not gone to a hairdresser’s but cut it herself at home, just grabbed a pair of scissors and snipped it off. To show that she did not care about looking pretty. About showing off. She didn’t wear make-up either. ‘You’re naturally beautiful, my little Indian,’ her grandmother had said one evening when she had plaited Mia’s hair in front of the fireplace back home in Åsgårdstrand. ‘Do you see how beautiful your eyelids are, how fine your long eyelashes? Do you see that nature has already made you up? You don’t have to bother with make-up. We don’t paint ourselves for the boys. They’ll come when the time is right.’ An Indian with Granny. And a Norwegian at school. What could be more perfect? Mia suddenly felt a bit nauseous from the pills; they didn’t just bring her oblivion and well-being. This would happen from time to time because she never bothered checking which pills she mixed together. She supported herself against the wall with one hand until the worst had passed, lifted her gaze once more, forcing herself to stand in front of the mirror a little longer. Look at herself. One final time.
Ten days left.
The eighteenth of April.
She was not particularly interested in what it would be like. Her final moment. If it would hurt. If it would be difficult to let go. She did not believe the stories about your life flashing by in front of your eyes as you died. Or perhaps it was true? It didn’t really matter. The story of Mia Krüger’s life was imprinted on her body. She could see her life in the mirror. An Indian with Norwegian eyes. Long, black hair which she used to cut short but was now cascading past her thin, white shoulders. She tugged her hair behind one ear and studied the scar near her left eye. A 3-centimetre-long cut, a scar that would never fade away completely. She had been interrogating a murder suspect after a young girl from Latvia had been found floating in the River Aker. Mia had failed to pay attention, hadn’t seen the knife; luckily, she had managed to swerve so that it did not blind her. She had worn a patch over her eye for several months afterwards; she had the doctors at Ullevål Hospital to thank that she still had her sight in both eyes. She held up her left hand in front of the mirror and looked at the missing fingertip. Another suspect, a farm outside Moss, mind the dog. The Rottweiler had gone for her throat, but she had raised her hand just in time. She could still feel its teeth around her fingers, how the panic had spread inside her in the few seconds it took before she got the pistol out of her holster and blew the head off the manic dog. She shifted her eyes down to the small butterfly she had had tattooed on her hip, right above her knicker line. She had been a nineteen-year-old girl in Prague, thinking herself a woman of the world. She had met a Spanish guy, a summer fling, they had drunk far too much Becherovka and both woken up with a tattoo. Hers was a small purple, yellow and green butterfly. Mia was tempted to smile. She had considered having it removed several times, embarrassed by the idiocy of her youth, but had never got round to it and, now, it no longer mattered. She stroked the slender silver bracelet on her right wrist. They had been given one each as confirmation presents, Sigrid and her. A charm bracelet with a heart, an anchor and an initial. An M on hers. An S on Sigrid’s. That night, when the party was over and the guests had gone home, they had been sitting in their shared bedroom at home in Åsgårdstrand when Sigrid had suddenly suggested that they swapped.
You take mine and I’ll have yours?
From that day, Mia had never taken the silver bracelet off.
The tablets were making her feel even more dopey; she could barely see herself in the mirror now. Her body was like a ghost; it seemed far away. A scar by her left eye. A little finger missing the two outer joints. A Czech butterfly right above her knicker line. Skinny arms and legs. An Indian with sad, blue, almost dead eyes … and then she couldn’t take any more, she averted her eyes from the mirror, stumbled into the shower cubicle and stood underneath the warm water for so long that it finally turned icy.
She avoided the mirror when she stepped out. Walked naked down to the living room and dried herself in front of the fireplace, where no one had lit a fire. Went into the kitchen and poured herself another drink. Found more pills in a drawer. Chewed them while she got dressed. Even more spaced out now. Clean on the outside and soon, also, on the inside.
Mia put on her knitted beanie and her jacket and left the house. She walked down to the sea. Sat on a rock and rested her eyes on the horizon. Contemplation by the sea. Where had she heard that expression before? At a festival, yes, that was it, a new Norwegian film festival started by celebrities who thought Norwegian films ought to be more action based. Mia Krüger loved films, but could not quite see how Norwegian films had changed for the better just by avoiding scenes of contemplation by the sea. She groaned whenever some poor sod tried to portray a police officer on film: most of the time she had to leave the auditorium out of secondhand embarrassment with the actor who had been given these lines and been told by the director to do this or that; it was quite simply too cringe making. No more contemplation by the sea. Mia Krüger smiled faintly to herself and took a swig from the bottle she had brought outside with her. If she had not come to Hitra to die, she would have liked to live here.
The eighteenth of April.
It had come to her one day, like a kind of vision, and from then on everything had slotted into place. Sigrid had been found dead on 18 April 2002. In a basement in Tøyen in Oslo, on a rottin
g mattress, still with the needle in her arm. She had not even had time to undo the strap. The overdose had killed her instantaneously. In ten days, it would be exactly ten years ago. Lovely little, sweet, beautiful Sigrid had died from an overdose of heroin in a filthy basement. Just one week after Mia had picked up from the rehab clinic in Valdres.
Oh, but she had looked wonderful, Sigrid, after four weeks at the facility. Her cheeks glowing, her smile back. In the car, returning to Oslo, it had been almost like the old days, the two of them laughing and joking like they used to in the garden at home in Åsgårdstrand.
‘You’re Snow White and I’m Sleeping Beauty.’
‘But I want to be Sleeping Beauty! Why do I always have to be Snow White?’
‘Because you have dark hair, Mia.’
‘Oh, is that why?’
‘Yes, that’s why. Haven’t you worked it out yet?’
‘No.’
‘You’re stupid.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘Do we have to play Snow White and Sleeping Beauty? We’ll both have to sleep for a hundred years while we wait for a prince to wake us. That’s no fun, why can’t we make up our own game?’
‘Oh, he’ll come one day, just you wait and see, Mia, he’ll come.’
In Sigrid’s case, the prince had been an idiot from Horten. He thought of himself as a musician, even played in some kind of band, which never gave concerts; all they ever did was hang out in the park, where they smoked joints or took speed or got high. He was just another skinny, opinionated loser. Mia Krüger could not bear even to say his name, the mere thought of him made her feel so sick that she had to straighten up and take deep breaths. She followed the path along the rocks, past the boat house, and sat down on the jetty. On the distant shore she could see activity. People doing people things. What time was it now? She shielded her eyes and looked up at the sky. She reckoned twelve, possibly, or maybe one; it looked like it might be, judging by the sun. She took another swig from the bottle, feeling the pills starting to take effect, strip her of her senses, make her indifferent. She dangled her feet over the edge of the jetty and turned her face to the sun.