Holger Munch was sweating as he waited in the arrivals terminal at Værnes Airport to pick up a rental car. As usual, the plane had been late due to fog at Gardermoen Airport, and once again Holger was reminded of Jan Fredrik Wiborg, the civil engineer who had supposedly killed himself in Copenhagen after criticizing the expansion plans for Oslo’s main airport, citing unfavorable weather conditions. Even now, eighteen years later, Munch was unable to forget that the body of a fully grown man had been found beneath a hotel-room window too small for him to have gotten through, just before the Airport Bill was due to be debated in Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament. And why had the Danish and the Norwegian police been reluctant to investigate his death properly?
Holger Munch abandoned his train of thought as a blond girl behind the Europcar counter cleared her throat to let him know it was his turn to be served.
“Munch,” he said curtly. “I believe a car has been booked for me.”
“Right, so you’re the guy who is getting a new museum in Oslo?” The girl in the green uniform winked at him.
Munch did not get the joke immediately.
“Or maybe you’re not the artist?” The girl smiled as she cheerfully bashed the keyboard in front of her.
“Eh? No, not the artist, no,” Munch said drily. “Not even related.”
Or I wouldn’t be standing here, not if I had that inheritance, Munch thought as the girl handed him a form to sign.
Holger Munch hated flying, which explained his bad mood. Not because he feared that the plane might crash. Holger Munch was an amateur mathematician and knew that the risk of a crash was less than that of being struck by lightning twice in the same day. No, Holger Munch hated planes because he could barely fit into the seat.
“There you are.” The girl in the green uniform smiled kindly and handed him the keys. “A nice big Volvo V70, all paid for, open-ended rental period and mileage. You can return it when and where you like. Have a nice trip.”
Big? Was this another one of her jokes, or was she merely trying to reassure him? Here’s a nice big car for you, because you have grown so fat that you can barely see your own feet?
On his way to the garage, Holger Munch caught a glimpse of his reflection in the large windows outside the arrivals terminal. Perhaps it was about time. Start exercising. Eat a slightly healthier diet. Lose a bit of weight. Lately he had begun to think along those lines. He no longer had to run down the streets chasing criminals—he had people working for him who could do that, so that was not the reason. No, in the last few weeks, Holger Munch had become rather vain.
Wow, Holger, new sweater? Wow, Holger, new jacket? Wow, Holger, have you trimmed your beard?
He unlocked the Volvo, placed his cell phone in the cradle, and turned it on. He fastened his seat belt and was heading toward the center of Trondheim when his messages began coming through. He heaved a sigh. One hour with his phone turned off and now it was starting again. No respite from the world. It was not entirely fair to say that it was the flight alone that had put him in a bad mood. There’d been a lot happening recently, both at work and at home. Holger swiped his finger across the smartphone screen, a model they’d 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’d started his career, and now he’d 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 nursing home. Plus countless text messages.
Holger Munch decided to ignore the world for a little longer and turned on the radio. He found the classical station, 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 No Smoking 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 favorite, but he was okay 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 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 phoned 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 the window and lit another one.
I don’t drink coffee, I don’t touch alcohol. Surely I’m allowed a stupid cigarette.
Holger Munch had been drunk only once, at the age of fourteen on his father’s cherry brandy at their vacation cottage, and he had never touched a drop of alcohol since.
The desire was just not there. He didn’t want it. It would never cross his mind to do anything that 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 station 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” if they were permitted more than a single word. 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 had not been on a date since his wife left him for a teacher with eight weeks of annual vacation who 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, but he’d bitten his tongue. What else would he do? Work as a security guard?
Holger Munch got back into the car and took the E6 toward Trondheim. He lit a fresh cigarette and followed the ring road around the city, heading south. The rental car was equipped with GPS, 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 cell phone 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.
“I’m in the car. Where the hell are you?” Munch snapped back.
“In the car where? Haven’t you gotten there yet?”
“No, I haven’t gotten there yet, I’ve only just landed—I thought you knew that. What do you want?”
“I 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 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 favor. Munch knew that Mikkelson was fuming now, and he savored how his former boss was having to control himself rather than speak his mind.
“Just do it.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Munch grinned as he 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 . . .”
“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.