Mia Krüger had been dozing on the sofa under a blanket near the fireplace. She’d been dreaming about Sigrid and had 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 blond, 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.
April 18.
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 pants pocket. Didn’t matter which ones. One white and one pale blue today.
Sigrid Krüger
Sister, friend, and daughter
Born November 11, 1979. Died April 18, 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 that the previous owner had put up right inside the door. She’d 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 hadn’t 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 had a shock when she saw the figure in the mirror. It was not 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 sweater and her jeans and stood in only her underwear in front of the mirror. Her underpants 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’d 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 one. Perhaps that explained why it had felt so good? Sparkling blue eyes. Not much of that left now. They looked dead already.
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 bad guys. The Indians the good guys. 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. Raven black hair flowing down her delicate shoulders. She had not had hair as long as this for ages. She’d started to wear it short when she started at the police academy. She hadn’t 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 didn’t care about looking pretty. About showing off. She didn’t wear makeup either. You’re naturally beautiful, my little Indian, her grandmother had said one evening when she braided Mia’s hair in front of the fireplace back home in Åsgårdstrand.
Sigrid had always been the favorite. Sigrid with her long blond 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, never said a bad word about anyone. Sigrid was quite simply fantastic, but whenever their grandmother had pulled Mia to one side and told her that she was special, she’d 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.
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.
Ten days left.
April 18.
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 how your life flashed 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 that she used to cut short but was now cascading down her thin white shoulders. She tugged her hair behind one ear and studied the scar near her left eye. An inch-long cut, a scar that would never fade away completely. She’d 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’d managed to swerve so that it did not blind her. She’d worn a patch over her eye for several months afterward; thanks to the doctors, she still had 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 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’d had tattooed on her hip. She had been a nineteen-year-old girl in Prague, thinking herself a woman of the world. She met a Spanish guy, a summer fling, they’d 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 gotten around to it, and now it no longer mattered. She stroked the slender silver bracelet on her right wrist. They’d been given one each as confirmation presents, Sigrid and she. A charm bracelet with a heart and 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’d sat in their shared bedroom at home in Åsgårdstrand when Sigrid had suddenly suggested they swap.
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 dopier—she could barely see herself in the mirror. Her body was like a ghost’s; it seemed far away. She stumbled into the shower cubicle and stood underneath the warm water for so long that it finally turned icy.
She avoided the mirror as she stepped out. Walked naked down to the living room and dried herself in front of the unlit fireplace. 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 cap and jacket and left the house.
April 18.
It had suddenly come to her one day, like a kind of vision, and from then on, everything slotted into place. Sigrid was found dead on April 18, 2002. In a basement in Tøyen in Oslo, on a rotting mattress, still with the needle in her arm. She’d not even had time to undo the strap. The overdose had killed her instantly. 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 her up from the rehab clinic in Valdres.
Oh, but she’d looked wonderful, Sigrid, after four weeks at the facility. Her cheeks glowing, her smile back. In the car heading home to Oslo, it had been almost like the old days, the two of them laughing and joking the way 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.”
Sigrid’s prince, unfortunately, had been an idiot from Horten. He thought of himself as a musician, even played in some kind of band that never gave concerts. All they ever did was hang out in the park, where they smoked joints or took speed. 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 sick. She followed the path along the rocks, past the boathouse, and sat down on the jetty. On the distant shore, she could see activity. People doing people things. She took a swig from the bottle she’d brought with her as she felt 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.
Markus Skog.
Sigrid had been eighteen, the scrawny idiot twenty-two. He’d moved to Oslo. A few months later, Sigrid had joined him.
Four weeks in rehab. It was not the first time Mia had picked up her sister from a rehab center, but this time had been different. Sigrid’s motivation had been completely different. Not the usual junkie smile after such a stay, lies and more lies, just itching to get out and shoot up again—no, there’d been something in her eyes. She’d seemed more determined, almost back to her old self.
Mia had thought so much about her sister over the years that it had almost driven her insane. Why Sigrid? Was it boredom? Because their parents had died? Or just because of some skinny, scrawny idiot? Was it love?
Their mother could be strict, but she was never particularly harsh. Their father had spoiled them, but surely that could do no harm? Eva and Kyrre Krüger had adopted the twins right after their birth. They had made arrangements with the biological mother in advance; she was young, single, desperate. Did not want to and could not cope with looking after two children. For a childless couple, the girls were a gift from heaven, exactly what they had always wanted. Their happiness was complete.
Their mother, Eva, taught at Åsgården Primary School. Their father, Kyrre, sold paint and owned a shop called Ole Krüger in the center of Horten.
Mia had searched high and low for an explanation, anything that could tell her why Sigrid ended up a junkie, but she never found one.
Markus Skog.
It was his fault.
It was just one week after leaving rehab. They had gotten along so well in her apartment in Vogtsgate. Sigrid and Mia. Mia and Sigrid. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. The two peas were back in their pod. Mia had even taken a couple of days off work, for the first time in God knows how long. Then one evening she found a note on the kitchen table:
Have to talk to M.
Back soon. S.
Mia Krüger got up from the edge of the jetty. She was already starting to sway. The pills from her pocket made her groggy. Mia Krüger took a few more and leaned back against the rock.
You’re very special, did you know that?
Perhaps that explained why she had chosen to go to the police academy? To do something different? She’d 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 little blond Sigrid. She was junkie Sigrid now, the nightmare. Their parents had been devastated, withdrawn from the world, from each other, from Mia. She had moved to Oslo, started with absolutely no enthusiasm to study at the university in Blindern. She hadn’t even been able to summon the energy to turn up for her exams. Perhaps the police academy had chosen her? So that she might rid the world of people like Markus Skog.
She had shot him.
Markus Skog.
Twice. In the chest.
It was a chance encounter; they’d 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 as she dangled her boots over the edge of the jetty. The whole incident was bizarre. She’d killed another human being, but she didn’t feel bad about it. She felt worse about the consequences. The media outrage and the uproar down at Grønland. Holger Munch, who had led the unit, who had cherry-picked her from the police academy, had been reassigned, the special unit closed down. This 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’d been following a lead that took them to Tryvann. Some junkies or hippies—the public always had difficulty telling the two apart when they called to complain—anyway, someone had parked a camper 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 camper and with her, unexpectedly, Markus Skog. And Mia had, as the internal affairs unit’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 ax 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 ax. 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 center of his chest.
She would have gone to prison if it had not been for Holger Munch. She took the empty bottle from her pocket, licked the last few drops, and raised it toward the clouds once more. It didn’t matter now. It would all be over soon.
She lay down, rested her cheek against the coarse wooden planks of the jetty, and closed her eyes.