by Samuel Bjork
Sigrid had always been everyone’s favourite. Sigrid, with her long, blonde hair. Who was good at school. Who played the flute, who played handball and was everyone’s friend. Mia had not resented the attention Sigrid got. Sigrid was never one to exploit it to her advantage; she never said a bad word about anyone. Sigrid was quite simply fantastic Sigrid, but whenever their grandmother had pulled Mia to one side and told her that she was special, she had felt great.
You’re very special, did you know that? The other children are fine, but you know things, Mia, don’t you? You see the things that other people tend to overlook.
Even though Granny was not her biological grandmother, she had always felt that they had something in common. A bond, a kinship. Perhaps because they looked like each other. Perhaps because she treated Mia more like a friend, an accomplice in being different. Her grandmother had told Mia stories from her life and hadn’t spared her blushes. That she had had many men, and that you should never be scared of them, they were as harmless as little rabbits. And that she could tell fortunes and that there were more realities than this one, so death was nothing to be scared of. It was Christianity, her grandmother had said, that had decided that death was a negative concept so that we would live our lives in fear of their God, believe that death leads to hell or heaven, Christians think it is the end of everything, but do you know something, Mia? Granny isn’t so sure that death is the end. I’m certainly not scared of it.
Back home in Åsgårdstrand, evil tongues had nicknamed her grandmother ‘the witch’, but it had never bothered the old lady. Mia could see exactly what they meant: her grandmother was not like other people, with her coarse, grey hair over her clear, almost blue-black eyes. In the shops, she spoke in a loud voice about the strangest things and would often stay up all night in her garden watching the moon, laughing to herself. She knew things which people back in the Middle Ages would undoubtedly have called witchcraft, and she treated Mia almost like her apprentice.
Mia felt lucky. She had grown up in a stable environment. With a kind mother and a fantastic father, with her grandmother only a few doors away. A grandmother who had taken notice of her, seen who she was, told her she was special.
Fly like the ladybird, Mia. Never forget that.
Her grandmother’s last words on her deathbed, spoken with a wink to her very special friend. Mia raised the bottle towards the clouds.
Death isn’t dangerous.
Six days left.
The pills she’d taken from her anorak made her groggy. Mia Krüger took a few more and leaned back against the rock.
You’re very special, Mia, did you know that?
Perhaps that explained why she had chosen to go to Police College? To do something different? She had thought about this as well these last few days. Why had she applied? She could no longer make the pieces fit together. Time kept shifting. Her brain was out of kilter. Sigrid was no longer blonde, little Sigrid, she was junkie Sigrid now, the nightmare. Their parents had been devastated, withdrawn from the world, from each other, from her. She had moved to Oslo, started, with absolutely no enthusiasm, to study at Blindern University; she hadn’t even been able to summon up the energy to turn up for her exams. Perhaps Police College had chosen her? So that she might rid the world of people like Markus Skog?
Mia rose and staggered down to the jetty. She finished off the bottle and put it in the pocket of her anorak. Found another couple of pills, munched them without washing them down with anything. The seagulls had abandoned her in favour of the fishing boat, and the only sound out here now was the waves lapping gently against the rock.
She had shot him.
Markus Skog.
Twice. In the chest.
It had been a chance encounter; they had been out on another assignment, a girl had disappeared and the special unit had been called in – just sniff around and take a peek at things, as Holger had put it: We don’t have a lot on right now, Mia. I think we should check this one out.
Holger Munch. Mia Krüger thought fondly of her old colleague and sat down on the edge of the jetty with her boots dangling over the edge. The whole incident was bizarre. She had killed another human being, but she didn’t feel bad about it. She felt worse about the consequences. The media outrage and the row down at Grønland. Holger Munch, who had led the unit, who had cherry-picked her from Police College, had been reassigned, the special unit closed down. This had hurt her deeply, and it had cut her to the core that Holger had paid the price for her actions, but the actual killing, strangely enough, no. They had been following a lead that took them to Tryvann, some junkies or hippies – the public always had difficulty in telling the two apart when they rang to complain – anyway, someone had parked a campervan in Tryvann and was partying and making a racket. Holger thought the missing girl might be there. And, indeed, they did come across a young girl, not the girl who was missing, but another one, glazed eyes, a needle in her arm, inside the filthy campervan and, with her, unexpectedly, Markus Skog. And Mia had, as the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s report quite accurately stated, ‘Acted carelessly, with unnecessary use of force’.
Mia shook her head at her own immorality. Holger Munch had stood by her, said that Skog had attacked her first – after all, a knife and an axe were found at the crime scene – but Mia should have known better. She was trained to defend herself without backup against a frenzied junkie brandishing a knife or wielding an axe. She could have shot him in the foot. Or in his arm. But she hadn’t, she had killed him. A moment of hatred, when the rest of the world had simply disappeared. Two shots to the centre of his chest.
She would have gone to prison if it had not been for Holger Munch. She took the empty bottle from her anorak, licked the last few drops and raised it towards the clouds once more. It didn’t matter now. It would all be over soon.
At last.
Six days left.
She lay down, rested her cheek against the coarse, wooden planks that made up the jetty and closed her eyes.
Chapter 8
Tobias Iversen covered his younger brother’s ears so that he would not hear the row coming from downstairs. They tended to kick off at this time, when their mother came home from work and discovered that their stepfather had not done what he was supposed to do. Cook dinner for the boys. Tidy the house a bit. Find himself a job. Tobias did not want his brother to hear them, so he had invented a game.
I’ll cover your ears and you tell me what you can see inside your head, yeah?
‘A red lorry with flames on it.’ Torben smiled and Tobias nodded and smiled back at him. What else?
‘A knight fighting a dragon.’ His brother grinned and Tobias nodded again.
The noise level below increased. Angry voices crept up between the walls and slipped under his skin. Tobias could not handle what would happen next – things being thrown at the walls, the screaming getting louder; perhaps worse – so he decided to take his brother outside. He whispered between his hand and his younger brother’s ear.
‘Why don’t we go outside and hunt some bison?’
His brother smiled and nodded eagerly.
Hunt bison. Run around the forest pretending to be Indians. He would love that. Not many other children lived out here, so Tobias and his brother usually played together, even though Tobias was thirteen and his brother only seven. It was not a good idea to be inside most of the time. Outside was better.
Tobias helped his brother put on his jacket and trainers, then he hummed, sang and stomped hard on the back stairs as they made their way out. As usual, his brother gazed at him with admiration; his big brother always entertained him, making these weird, loud noises. Torben thought it was funny; he loved his big brother very much, loved joining him on all the exciting, strange adventures his brother came up with.
Tobias went to the woodshed, found some string and a knife and told Torben to run ahead without him. They had a secret place in the forest and it was perfectly safe, his brother was free to roa
m; further in, there was an clearing between the spruces where the two of them had built a hut, a little home away from home.
When they reached the hut, Torben was already settled on the old mattress, had found a comic and was absorbed by the pictures and all these exciting new letters and words which he finally, after a huge effort, both at school and with some help from his big brother, was beginning to grasp.
Tobias took out the knife and chose a suitable willow branch, cut it off at the base and stripped away the bark in the middle, the section that was going to form the handle of the bow. The grip improved when the bark was removed and the wood had time to dry slightly. He bent the willow over his knees, tied the thin rope to each end and, hey presto!, a new bow. He placed it on the ground and went off to find suitable material for arrows. They did not have to be willow, most types of wood would do, except for spruce: the branches were too limp. He returned with straight, narrow branches and started stripping off the bark. Soon four new arrows were lying near the tree stump he was sitting on.
‘Tobias, what does it say here?’
His brother came padding out from the hut with the comic in his hand.
‘Kryptonite,’ Tobias told him.
‘Superman doesn’t like that,’ his younger brother said.
‘You’re right,’ Tobias replied, wiping a bit of snot from his brother’s nose with the sleeve of his jumper.
‘Do you think it’ll be a good one?’
Tobias got up and put an arrow against the string, pulled the bow string as far as he could and let the arrow fly in between the trees.
‘Awesome!’ his brother cried out. ‘Would you make one for me as well, please?’
‘This one is for you,’ Tobias said with a wink.
His brother’s cheeks flushed and his gaze softened. He tightened the bow as hard as he could and managed to get the arrow to go a few metres. He looked at Tobias, who nodded affirmatively – good shot – then he went to fetch the arrow.
‘Why don’t we shoot the Christian girls?’ Torben said when he came back.
‘What do you mean?’ Tobias said, somewhat startled.
‘The Christian girls who live in the forest? Why don’t we shoot them?’
‘We don’t shoot people,’ Tobias said, taking his brother by the arm quite firmly. ‘And how come you know about the Christian girls?’
‘I heard it at school,’ his brother said. ‘That Christian girls live in the forest now and they eat people.’
Tobias chuckled to himself.
‘It’s true there are new people living in the forest.’ He smiled. ‘But they’re not dangerous and they definitely don’t eat people.’
‘So why don’t they go to our school?’ his wide-eyed brother demanded to know. ‘If they live here?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Tobias replied. ‘I think they have their own school.’
His brother’s face turned very serious.
‘I bet that’s really good. And that’s why they don’t want to go to ours.’
‘Probably.’ Tobias winked at him again. ‘So, where do you want to hunt bison today?’ he continued, and ruffled his brother’s hair. ‘Up by Rundvann?’
‘Probably,’ said the younger boy, who wanted to be like his brother. ‘I think so.’
‘Rundvann it is. Please, would you go and get the first arrow I shot? That is, if you think you can find it?’
His brother nodded.
‘I guess I can,’ he said with a sly smile, and raced off in between the trees.
Chapter 9
Holger Munch was not feeling entirely comfortable as he sat in the small motorboat going from Hitra to an even smaller island just beyond it. Not that he was seasick, no, Holger Munch loved being at sea, but he had just spoken to Mikkelson on the phone. Mikkelson had sounded very strange, not his usual brusque self at all; he had been almost humble, wishing Munch the best of luck, hoping that he would do his best. Said that it was important that the police worked together as a team now – lots of morale boosting, very unlike Mikkelson, and Munch didn’t like it one bit. Something had quite clearly happened. Something Mikkelson did not want to tell Munch about.
Munch pulled his jacket tighter against the wind and tried to light a cigarette as the boat chugged steadily towards the mouth of the fjord. He did not think that the young man with the dishevelled hair steering the boat was a police officer, but some sort of local volunteer, and the reason he had not been able to take Munch to the island until two o’clock was still unclear, but Munch had not had the energy to find out. He had met him on the quay, asked him if he knew where the island was and the young man with the unruly hair had nodded and pointed. Only fifteen minutes by boat. It was Rigmor’s old place, she had lived there with her son, but then her son had moved to Australia, probably because of a woman, and Rigmor had had no choice but to move to Hitra and her place had been sold, apparently to some girl from East Norway; no one knew much about her, she had been seen her heading to Fillan a couple of times, a pretty girl, about thirty, long, black hair, always wore sunglasses. Was that where he was going? Was it important?
The young man shouted all this over the noise from the engine, but Holger Munch, who had not said a word since greeting him at the quay, stayed silent. He just let the lad talk while, for the third time, he shielded his lighter against the wind with his hand and tried to light the cigarette, again without success.
As they approached the island, the faint nausea he had felt after talking to Mikkelson began to dissipate. He realized he would be seeing her soon. He had missed her. He had last seen her a year ago. At the convalescent home. Or the madhouse, or whatever they called it these days. She had not been herself; he had barely been able to make contact with her. He had tried reaching her a couple of times, by phone and email, but there had been no reply, and when he saw the pretty little island in front of him, he understood why. She didn’t want to be reached. She wanted to be alone.
The motorboat docked at a small jetty and Munch climbed ashore, not as nimbly as he would have done ten years ago, but his fitness level was nowhere near as poor as people’s comments tended to suggest.
‘Do you want me to wait, or will you give me a call when you want taking back?’ said the young man with the messy hair, clearly hoping he would be asked to wait, join in the excitement. Munch had a hunch that not a lot happened out here.
‘I’ll call you,’ Munch said tersely, and raised his hand to his forehead by way of goodbye.
He turned and looked up towards the house. He waited while he listened to the sound of the engine disappear across the sea behind him. It was a pretty place. She had taste, Mia, no doubt about it. She had picked the perfect place to hide. Her own little island close to the mouth of the fjord. From the jetty, a narrow path led up to a small, white, idyllic house. Munch was no expert, but it looked as if the place might have been built in the 1950s, perhaps originally as a summer cabin which had later been turned into all-year accommodation. Mia Krüger. It would be good to see her again.
He remembered the first time he had met her. Shortly after the special investigation unit had been set up, he had had a call from Magnar Yttre, an old colleague and now principal of the Police College. Although he had not spoken to Yttre for years, his old colleague did not waste one second on small talk. ‘I think I’ve found one for you,’ he had announced, sounding almost as proud as a little kid showing his parents a drawing.
‘Hi, Magnar, it’s been a long time. What have you got?’
‘I’ve found one for you. You have to meet her.’
Yttre had spoken so fast that Munch had missed some of the details, but the short version went as follows: during their second year, Police College students underwent a test developed by scientists at the Institute of Psychology at UCLA. The test, which had a technical name Munch missed, consisted of showing the student a photograph of a murder victim, along with several pictures from the crime scene. The students’ task was to free associate based on the photographs,
give their response to them and their observations; the test was presented as quite relaxed, almost a game, so that the students would not feel pressured or realize that they were participating in something significant.
‘I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve run this test, but we’ve never seen a result like this. This girl is unique,’ Yttre had declared, still brimming with enthusiasm.
Holger Munch had met her at a café, a casual meeting outside Police Headquarters. Mia Krüger. In her early twenties, in a white jumper and tight black trousers, with dark hair, not very well cut, and the clearest blue eyes he had ever seen. He had taken to her immediately. It was something about the way she moved and talked. How her eyes reacted to his questions, as if she knew that he was testing her; but she replied politely all the same, with a twinkle in her eye, as if to say, What do you think I am? Dumb or something?
A few weeks later he had picked her up from Police College with Yttre’s blessing; he had been happy to sort out all the paperwork. There was no need for her to stay in school any longer. This girl was already fully qualified.
Munch smiled to himself and started walking towards the house. The front door was ajar, but there was no sign of her anywhere.
‘Hello? Mia?’
He knocked on the door and took a couple of cautious steps inside the hallway. It suddenly struck him that, even though they had worked together for many years and were close friends, he had never been to her home. He began to feel like an intruder and lingered in the hall before he took a few more reluctant steps inside. He knocked on another half-open door and entered the living room. The room was sparsely furnished: a table, an old sofa, some spindle-back chairs, a fireplace in one corner. The overall effect was rather odd, as if it were not a home, merely a place to stay; no photographs, no personal effects anywhere.