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’d been almost humble, wishing Munch the best of luck, hoping that he would do his best. Said it was important that the police work together as a team now, lots of morale boosting, very uncharacteristic of Mikkelson, and Munch did not 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 toward the mouth of the fjord. He did not think that the young man with the disheveled hair steering the boat was a police officer, rather some sort of local volunteer, and the reason he hadn’t been able to take Munch to the island earlier was still unclear. 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. Her place had been sold, apparently to some girl from East Norway—no one knew much about her; he had seen her heading to town 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 the latter 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, and 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 did not 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 to go 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 in a salute by way of good-bye.
He turned and looked up toward 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 an idyllic small white 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 that had later been turned into a year-round accommodation. Mia Krüger. It would be good to see her again.
He remembered the first time he met her. Shortly after the special investigation unit had been set up, he’d had a call from Magnar Yttre, an old colleague and now dean of the police academy. 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 academy students underwent a test developed by scientists from the psychology department at UCLA. The test, which had a technical name that Munch missed, consisted of showing the students 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 observations and responses to them; 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 have 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, wearing a white sweater and tight black trousers, with dark hair, not very well cut, and the clearest blue eyes he had ever seen. He’d 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 picked her up from the police academy with Yttre’s blessing, as Yttre 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 toward the house. The front door was ajar, but there were no signs 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.
Perhaps he’d been mistaken? What if she was not here? Perhaps she had just stayed here for a brief period before moving on, hiding somewhere else?
“Hello? Mia?”
Munch continued into the kitchen and heaved a sigh of relief. On the kitchen counter below one of the windows, there was a coffee machine, one of those big, complicated ones you saw in coffee bars, rather than the kind in people’s homes. He smiled to himself. Now he was sure that he was in the right place. Mia Krüger had few vices, but the one thing she could not do without was good coffee. He’d lost count of the number of times she’d drunk his coffee at work and scrunched up her nose. How do you drink this dishwater? Doesn’t it make you sick?
Munch walked over to the counter and touched the shiny machine. It was cold. It had not been used for a while. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. She could still be nearby. But something felt very wrong. He could not quite put his finger on it, but it was there. He couldn’t resist the temptation and started opening cupboards and drawers.
“Hello? Mia? Where are you?”