Kim Kolsø sat at the back of the incident room listening to everything falling apart. Not for him, but for Munch and Mia. And not that either of them was there. Had they been, they might have been able to answer some of Mikkelson’s questions. Mia had been unavailable all day, but Kim believed that Anette had spoken to her and learned that Mia had been to Åsgårdstrand and was now on her way back. No one had heard from Munch.
Kim Kolsø sighed and drummed his fingers on the table. He looked up at Mikkelson, who was pacing to and fro in front of the board like a teacher, his forehead furrowed above his glasses and his hands behind his back. They had been cast as his pupils who were about to receive a telling-off. Kim glanced at Curry, who mouthed Bullshit and rolled his eyes. Kim had to look away so as not to laugh, but he totally agreed. Their workload was insane. Not one member of the team was able to sit still. Not even Ludvig, who was coming up for retirement; he was squirming like a fidgety little kid on the edge of his chair. Gabriel Mørk seemed to have borne the brunt of it. He’d been dragged out of his office, where he’d been Skyping with a friend, who was cleaning up the sound on the Kiese movie. The young man was rocking back and forth in his chair and looked as if he were on the verge of a meltdown.
“Right,” Mikkelson said, glaring across the room. “Is everyone here?”
No one said anything. If Mikkelson was the teacher, they were the naughty kids who’d been put in detention due to their lack of respect for authority. The room was a powder keg. The air was laden with tension.
“Can anyone update us?”
Mikkelson pushed his glasses up his nose and glared across the room again. No one said anything. The class rebellion against the teacher continued. It was childish, but the anger was real. Munch’s and Mia’s most loyal friends and colleagues sat in this room. No one had any interest in seeing them discredited.
“Where is Holger Munch?” Mikkelson said. “Where is Mia Krüger?”
At length Anette rose to her feet. “We haven’t heard from Holger,” she said calmly. “I have spoken to Mia.”
“Status?”
“She was on her way here the last time I talked to her.”
“And Munch?”
“We haven’t heard from him for a while, but Mia had a theory,” Anette continued.
“I bet she had,” Mikkelson said sarcastically, without getting much of a reaction from the team. “And what was that?”
“That Munch must have received a call from the killer,” Anette said. “That the killer ordered him to meet up alone, and that’s what he has gone to do.”
“But all our phones are being monitored. Is there anything to suggest that this might be the case?” Mikkelson said.
“No,” Gabriel Mørk said. “Nothing from his phone before he turned it off.”
“Couldn’t the killer have contacted him some other way?” Ludvig Grønlie ventured cautiously.
“What do you mean?” Mikkelson said.
“Well, I don’t know, but there are private email accounts—I mean, on the Net, Gmail, and so on. We don’t have access to those, or do we?”
Grønlie looked tentatively at Gabriel Mørk; he was well aware that he belonged to a different generation of police officers and hoped that he’d not been mistaken.
“Are you telling me that everything we do online is being monitored? I certainly hope not,” Curry quipped.
A few of the others tittered.
“No, we don’t have access to those,” Gabriel Mørk said.
“So Munch could have gotten a message,” Anette said. “Something that meant he had to turn up for a meeting alone?”
Mikkelson sighed. “And is that how we work?”
He looked across the gathering, still without getting the response he was seeking.
“And is that how we work?” he said again, a little louder this time. “No, it is not. We’re a team. A team. We don’t have room for maverick operations. Here we keep each other informed about what is happening and we work together. No wonder you haven’t come up with anything.”
“Actually, we’ve discovered quite a lot.” Ludvig coughed and got up.
Kim really liked Ludvig Grønlie. He had exactly what it took to belong to the special unit. It was odd, really. Several people had joined the unit only to leave soon afterward because they just didn’t fit in. No one could quite put a finger on what it was. It was more than ability, age, background, or specialization, it was also chemistry. A shared tacit understanding. This is what we do, and this is what we don’t do. Kim had met several talented colleagues who’d joined them but never settled in. People who couldn’t stand the sight of Munch. Who thought that Mia Krüger was the most overrated investigator of her generation. Kim had worked with both Munch and Mia for a long time. And he couldn’t imagine doing any other job in the whole world.
Ludvig Grønlie gave Mikkelson a brief account of what they had discovered so far. Malin Stoltz. The apartment filled with mirrors. The link between Høvikveien Nursing Home and a support group for childless women in Hønefoss. The Kiese movie, which, if Mikkelson hadn’t insisted they all sat here like naughty children, would soon provide them with a location where Stoltz was holding Marion Munch.
“Right, right,” Mikkelson said, pushing his glasses back in place. “And where do we stand?”
“Can I go now?”
It was Gabriel Mørk speaking. Kim Kolsø smiled discreetly to himself. He liked this young man. He had appeared out of nowhere and in no time become an important member of the team. A Munch special. Munch had brought in Mia Krüger in the same way. Rumor had it that she wasn’t even required to complete her training at the police academy.
“Why?” Mikkelson said with a frown.
“Munch has gone someplace to find the killer, so it might be a good idea for us to know where that place is,” Gabriel Mørk said. “We’re in the process of cleaning up the film—I have a pal who’s brilliant at this. We’ll have the GPS coordinates soon. Perhaps it would be a better use of my time than sitting here.”
Kim laughed to himself. When he’d first met Gabriel Mørk in the street, the lad had looked afraid of his own shadow. Now it was as if he’d been with the team from the start.
“And who are you again?” Mikkelson said, taking off his glasses.
“Gabriel,” Mørk replied.
“How much police experience did you say you had?”
“Two weeks,” Mørk replied, deadpan.
“I have twenty years,” Mikkelson said, putting on his glasses again. “Perhaps I should be the judge of what we should be spending our time on, don’t you think?”
His attempt at sarcasm landed on stony ground. Kim could see Curry winking at Gabriel Mørk, who responded with a shrug.
“Anette?” Mikkelson said, seeking support.
“Gabriel is right,” Anette said, getting up. “The Kiese film is important and should be our number-one priority. If Munch has chosen to shut us out because Stoltz gave him an ultimatum, it’s understandable. He loves his granddaughter. I would have done exactly the same.”
Kim could see the color change in Mikkelson’s face. If he’d thought that Anette Goli was on his side, he’d been very much mistaken.
“I see,” Mikkelson said, sounding wounded as he looked down and flicked through some papers. “So what do we do now?”
Kim Kolsø had turned off the alerts on his cell phone, but he’d forgotten to turn off vibration. His phone suddenly jumped on the table in front of him, displaying an unknown number.
“Yes?” Mikkelson said irritably, glaring at him.
“I have to take this one,” Kim said, getting up.
“Really?” Mikkelson said.
“Yes,” Kim insisted.
“Then . . .” Mikkelson said.
Kim left the room and never heard the rest. He went to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee as he took the call.
“Kim Kolsø speaking.”
The caller was a woman.
“Yes, hi, my name is Emilie Isaksen.”
“Right, hi. What can I do for you?”
Kim opened the fridge and found a carton of milk. If there was one thing he and Mia Krüger agreed about, it was that you risked your life drinking the stuff that came out of the coffee machine.
“I found your business card inside a mattress,” the woman said. “And I don’t know what to do. I’m hoping you might be able to help.”
“I might well be. What do you need help with?” Kim said, adding some milk to his coffee.