The rain had eased off when Mia pulled up outside Høvikveien Nursing Home. She could see the dark clouds drift toward the center of Oslo as she got out of the car and went up the steps.
Karen was behind the reception desk when she arrived. The same place Malin Stoltz had been standing the time Mia discovered Veronica Bache’s canasta certificate on the wall. What a dimwit she’d been. She hadn’t made the connection. She was no longer functioning fully; maybe that was why. Nor had she realized that Stoltz was coming after her. Munch yes, but the wrong Munch. Edvard Munch, not Holger. That would explain why the bodies had been displayed at Isegran Fort. The planned statues of Munch’s mothers. Mia Krüger had worked on the Hønefoss case. Was that the killer’s thinking? Mia was a woman. A police officer and a woman. She should have known better. She should have found the baby because she was a woman? Mia could no longer think straight. Her trip to the cemetery had drained her of her last strength. Her grandmother was dead. Her father was dead. Her mother was dead. Sigrid was dead. She was all alone. She looked forward to all of it being over. There’d been times at Hitra when she’d started having doubts as to whether she’d made the right choice. Kill herself. Leave this world. What if she were wrong? But not anymore. She was certain now. She had made the right choice. She should never have left the island. In her mind she saw the pills waiting for her on the table. She realized she was looking forward to it.
Come to me, Mia, come.
But first she must find Marion. Gather the last of her strength and find the smiling little girl, the apple of Holger Munch’s eye. Track down Malin Stoltz. She thought briefly about Munch, who had received a telephone call and then disappeared. She hoped he was okay. Perhaps he might even have caught Malin by now. Found his granddaughter. Mia mustered a small smile. She didn’t want the world to see how bad she really felt.
“Hi, Karen.”
“Hi, Mia.”
“Thanks for calling, it was good of you. I’m sorry if I sounded a bit off. It’s just we’re quite busy at work.”
“Has something happened?” Karen asked with an anxious expression on her face.
She cares about Holger, Mia thought. It was obvious now.
“Oh, no, just the usual pressure,” Mia lied. “Did you find that key?”
“Yes, I have it here,” Karen said. “Let me just put on my jacket.”
“Has the car been there for a long time?”
“I don’t know,” Karen said, ushering her out the door and down the stairs to the underground parking garage. “I took the rubbish down this morning—it’s not really my job, you understand, but . . . well, we all have to pitch in when we’re busy—and that’s when I spotted it. I don’t know how long it’s been here.”
“Why didn’t she use it to drive herself home?” Mia wondered out loud.
“I’ve no idea,” Karen said as she led the way into the garage.
Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.
Her grandmother’s words on her deathbed. Mia no longer felt like she could fly. Karen was about her age, a little older perhaps, but she looked in much better shape. Younger. Softer. Not a single wrinkle. She didn’t carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. She worked in a nursing home. A world away from that of a worn-out investigator with thin skin.
“Here it is,” Karen said with a smile, indicating the white Citroën parked in a corner. “And here’s the key.” She smiled again.
Mia unlocked the car and peered inside. At first glance there was nothing to suggest that she was looking at a serial killer’s car. Everything seemed normal. A cup from McDonald’s. A newspaper. Mia walked around the car and unlocked the trunk. Nothing except what you would expect to find. A warning triangle. A pair of boots. Damn it, what had she expected? That Stoltz would have left some of the girls’ belongings there? She was much too clever for that. Cynical. Callous. Years of planning. She wouldn’t have left behind evidence in her car. She had even visited Sigrid’s grave. The very thought enraged Mia. She felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket. The photograph from Ludvig. So at least parts of her brain were working. She was pleased that she’d been right. A support group for childless women. It felt good to know that she had contributed something. She took out the phone and opened Ludvig’s message. A photograph. The support group in Hønefoss. “Christmas get-together 2005.” There were six women in total. Smiling in front of a Christmas tree. Mia recognized her immediately. Malin Stoltz. Not with different-colored eyes. Two blue eyes. Lenses. Mia enlarged the picture slightly. Malin Stoltz. How strange. She looked so normal. An ordinary woman who longed for a child but couldn’t have one. Smiling, with her arm around the woman standing next to her. The woman standing next to her. Mia enlarged the photograph to get a better look at her.
But what the hell?
She spun around, but she was too late. The woman in the photograph. The woman behind her. She felt the needle penetrate her neck, the back of her head hitting the metal of the open trunk.
“Count backward from ten.” Karen smiled. “That’s what they usually say. Count backward from ten, and then you’ll be asleep. Isn’t that funny? Ten, nine, eight . . .”
Mia Krüger was gone before she heard six.