Mia Krüger woke up with a feeling that there was someone in her hotel room. She was unable to open her eyes properly, enveloped in a fog, half asleep, half awake. She forced open her eyelids enough to establish that she was alone. There was no one there, just her. A depressing thought. Her life was reduced to this? A hotel room and a murder case. Not that it really mattered. This was only temporary.
Come to me, Mia, come.
She would be gone soon. Why fret about it? Why think? Why this? Why that?
For some inexplicable reason, Mia had a headache. After her consumption of various drugs in the last six months, she thought she’d become immune to low-level pain like this. Her evening with Susanne had gone on longer than planned—well, “planned” was an exaggeration; it had been a chance meeting—but the bottom line was that she’d had too much to drink. When her cell rang, she reached out sleepily, pressed the screen, and started to talk before she was fully conscious.
“Yes? Mia speaking.”
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
It was Gabriel Mørk. The new guy. The cute one who blushed. The hacker.
“No,” Mia said, sitting up in her bed.
“Now, I know I’m not a bona fide police officer,” Gabriel said, sounding apologetic. “So I’m not sure if this is important or not.”
“You’re doing fine.” Mia yawned. “Just tell me.”
“Okay,” Gabriel went on. “You know that the laptop had two users?”
“Roger and Randi.”
“Yes, Roger and Randi. And this is where it gets weird.”
“Why?”
“Let’s start with Roger. No surprises there. Did not use his laptop all that much. He wasn’t a computer freak.”
“Why not?”
“He only used it for the usual guy stuff.”
“Which is what?”
“Emails. Cars and motorbikes. What we would expect, basically.”
“Who did he email? Anyone interesting?”
“Not really. There were hardly any private emails. I mean, from people he knew. He had ordered some biker magazines. Bills, e-invoices. Junk mail. A fairly sad life, judging by his email account.”
“Not everyone lives their life on the Net, Gabriel,” Mia said.
“No, you’re right, but even so. The absence of personal stuff is odd, but that’s not the interesting bit.”
“Could you hang on two seconds?”
“Okay.”
Mia put the cell on hold and made her way to the hotel telephone on the bedside table. She called reception and ordered breakfast to be sent to her room. She had tried going to the dining room for breakfast yesterday, and that had been a mistake. Too many people.
“I’m back.”
“Okay,” Gabriel said again. “I’ll check out this Roger user a bit more, but I wanted to tell you what I found on the other one.”
“Randi?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“That’s the weird part.”
“What?”
Gabriel fell silent for a little while. “I think you need to see it for yourself, but I’m quite sure that it’s the same person.”
“What do you mean?”
“Roger and Randi. They’re one and the same.”
“Roger Bakken was two people?”
“Yes . . . or no. Or yes. He liked to be a woman.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, it’s the truth.”
“How do you know?”
“Under the Roger username, he’s a man. He has photographs of motorbikes and cars. He goes fishing and drinks alcohol. As Randi he’s completely different. He’s a woman. Bookmarks on the browser are blogs about crocheting and interior design. He has photographs of himself wearing women’s clothing. It looks like he lived a double life.”
“And you’re quite sure about this?”
She heard Gabriel sigh on the other end.
“I know I’m not a police officer, but I am capable of spotting a man dressed like a woman.”
“Sorry,” Mia said. “It just sounds so weird.”
“I agree,” Gabriel said. “But it is him. One hundred percent. You can see for yourself when you get here.”
“I’ll be there shortly,” Mia said. “What about his cell phone?”
“That’s also a bit odd.”
“What do you mean?”
“Practically all the messages had been deleted, and he had no stored numbers. I don’t know what this guy was up to, but he’s done everything he could to erase every trace of himself.”
“Apart from the photographs of himself dressed as a woman.”
“Yes, except for that, but like I said, they were on the laptop.”
“You said that practically all the text messages had been deleted. Are you telling me you do have some?”
“Yes, a few cryptic ones.”
“Let me hear them.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.” Mia couldn’t help smiling.
“Okay.”
Gabriel cleared his throat and prepared to read aloud what he had found. “There are three text messages. All are dated March twentieth.”
“The day he died.”
“Was it?”
“Yes, let me have them.”
There was a knock on the hotel door. Mia put on one of the hotel’s dressing gowns and took in her breakfast while Gabriel opened the text messages.
“Okay, the first one is short.”
“Who sent it?”
“The sender is anonymous.”
“How is that possible? Can you really hide your number when you’re texting?”
“Yes, that’s easy,” Gabriel replied.
“I know I probably sound like your granny right now, but how do you do that?” Mia asked him, and took a sip of her coffee.
It was bitter. She spit it out, muttering curses under her breath. How could people not learn to make proper coffee? The scrambled eggs and the bacon on the plate didn’t look very appetizing either.
“You send it via the Net using TxtEmNow.com or some similar site. There are lots of them where you don’t have to register. You just type in the number and the message, and off it goes, usually with advertising—that’s how they finance it.”
“And what did the message say?”
“There are three.”
“Let me have them.”
“‘It is unwise to fly too near the sun.’”
“Again, please.”
Mia was unable to eat anything. She carried the tray to the windowsill.
“‘It is unwise to fly too near the sun.’ That’s the first message.”
“What did he reply?”
“He didn’t. You can’t reply to a text message when there’s no sender.”
Mia sat down on the bed and leaned her head against the wall. Her headache was starting to lift. Fly too near the sun. The eagle tattoo. Wings. Icarus with his wings. He flew too near the sun, and the wings melted. Hubris. Arrogance. Roger Bakken had stepped out of line.
“Are you there?”
“Yes, sorry, Gabriel, just had to think.”
“Are you ready for the next one?”
“Sure.”
“‘Who’s there?’”
“Was that the full message?”
“Yes. Do you want the final one?”
“Yes.”
“‘Bye, bye, birdie.’”
Mia closed her eyes, but nothing came to her. Who’s there? Bye, bye, birdie. Right now it made no sense. She got up from the bed and went to the bathroom. Caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and did not like what she saw. She looked exhausted. Practically dead. Ghostly. She bent down and started running the bath.
“Mia? You still there?”
“Yes, sorry, Gabriel. I was just trying to work out if the two latter ones made any sense.”
“And?”
“No, not right now. I’ll be there in a while, all right?”
“That’s fine, I’ll stay where I am.”
“Great, Gabriel, good job so far.”
She returned to the bedroom. Put her cell phone on the windowsill and tried eating some of her breakfast. She could not get anything down. Never mind. She would get herself a coffee and a scone on the way.
Who’s there? Bye, bye, birdie.
Mia undressed and got into the bath. The warm water enveloped her body and calmed her. Being out with Susanne had been great. Really great. In fact, they had arranged to meet up again, hadn’t they? Mia could not quite remember—she’d been a little drunk toward the end.
She leaned her head against the rim of the bath and closed her eyes.
Who’s there? Bye, bye, birdie.
It wasn’t much, but at least it was a start.