Gabriel Mørk was standing outside the exclusive apartment building in Frogner, getting absolutely no response. He was starting to grow annoyed with Ludvig, who had dispatched him here. He had not realized that his job would involve shopping for groceries. He knew he wasn’t a senior member of the special unit—after all, he had only just started—but to go shopping, surely someone else could have done that? He had more important things to deal with right now. He looked up at the apartments and rang the doorbell again. There was still no response. It was a fashionable development. The most desirable part of West Oslo. Each apartment had large windows and a terrace overlooking the park. He thought about his girlfriend and the baby she was carrying. He’d been so worried to begin with. Where would they live? How would they pay the bills when the baby came? They had to buy so much stuff, and he was embarrassed at how ignorant he’d been. He really hadn’t known the first thing about becoming a father. Cribs and strollers, and that was only for starters. But not anymore. Now he had a job. Out of the blue. A cool job at that. An important job. He had never thought that something like this would turn up. The police had been . . . the enemy, to be blunt. To the other hackers he knew. But they had no idea what they were talking about. They hadn’t met Mia Krüger. And Holger Munch. And Curry. And Anette. And Ludvig. And Kim and all the others. They didn’t know what it was like to have colleagues. Going to work, being a part of something where people smiled and said hello and knew that you belonged to the team, who liked you and respected the work you did. He felt he was helping to make the news somehow. He had never cared much about the news before, not until now, but it was completely different when it was about your own work. Also, the equipment the technicians from Grønland had brought him was brilliant. He would never have been able to afford this himself; for the first few days he had almost felt like a little kid at Christmas.
He rang the doorbell yet again and waited. He was just about to try it once more when the front door opened and an old lady came out. He smiled politely at her, held the door open, and slipped inside.
He carried the bags up the stairs and reached the second floor. Ludvig had explained that it was the apartment at the far end of the corridor. He was about to ring the bell when he noticed that the door was ajar.
“Hello?” he called out softly. “Is anyone here?”
He carried the shopping bags inside the foyer.
“Hello? I’ve brought you some things from Holger Munch.”
That was when he discovered the body.
What the hell?
He threw down the bags, called 112, and knelt down by the woman lying on the floor.