There was an atmosphere of both tension and relief in the modern interview room in the basement of police headquarters in Grønland. They’d been looking for her for so long. First as an invisible face, a serial killer whose identity they did not know, then for every woman with different-colored eyes living in an apartment covered with mirrors. And now she was here. Just a few feet away. Anette watched her furtively while Curry poured yet another glass of water. Malin Stoltz. Anette didn’t know quite what she’d expected, but probably not this. Stoltz was so delicate and frail. Long black hair covering a pale face. Thin fingers that could barely manage to raise the water glass to her dry lips.
“Thank you,” Malin Stoltz said timidly, bowing her head again.
Anette almost felt sorry for her.
“You have the right to have a lawyer present. Do you understand that?” Curry said, sitting down.
Malin Stoltz nodded faintly. “I don’t need one,” she whispered.
“It might be a good idea,” Anette suggested.
Malin Stoltz glanced up at her. One brown and one blue eye looking as if they had lost the will to live.
“I don’t need one,” Malin Stoltz repeated, then raked a thin hand through her black hair. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“The suspect has declined her right to legal counsel,” Curry said into the small microphone on the table.
“Are you sure?” Anette said.
Malin Stoltz nodded once more, still very carefully. She was so fragile. Anette feared that she would break if she spoke too loudly or even just snapped her fingers.
“I will tell you everything I know,” Stoltz continued. “But I want you to call someone.”
“And who would that be?” Curry said brusquely.
Anette signaled for him to back off. There was no cause for aggression. Malin Stoltz was already broken.
“I’m ill,” Malin said. “I have a disease. I want you to call my doctor, please?” Malin looked at her again, this time with a pleading expression.
“Of course,” Anette agreed. “What is the number?”
“I know it by heart,” Malin said.
Curry pushed a notepad and pen across the table. His cell phone beeped. He checked the message while Malin wrote down the number. He raised his eyebrows and slid his phone across to Anette. It was from Ludvig.
Munch is on his way.
Anette smiled and returned his phone. Munch was back. At last. Anette took the notepad from Malin Stoltz and passed it to Curry.
“Please, would you make the call?”
Curry nodded and left the room.
“Would you like some more water?” Anette asked her when they were alone.
“No, thank you,” Stoltz whispered, hanging her head again.
“What is wrong with you?”
“The doctors can’t figure it out,” Malin said. “But it’s in my head. My mind is not sound. Sometimes I don’t know who I am. But they can’t figure out what it is.”
“Where is Marion Munch?” Anette asked her.
“Who?” Malin Stoltz looked perplexed.
“Marion Munch. You took her from the apartment, didn’t you? Where are you keeping her?”
“Who?” Stoltz said again. She seemed genuinely mystified now.
“You know why you’re here, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Malin nodded.
“And why are you here?”
“We conned the old people,” Malin said in a weak voice.
This time it was Anette’s turn to look astounded. “What do you mean?”
Malin looked up at her.
“We conned the old people. We didn’t mean to. That was just how it ended up. Karen and I. We needed the money. I was going to adopt a child. It’s difficult when you’re single and you’re not in good health. Do you know how difficult and expensive it is to adopt a child?”
Anette had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. “Are you ill at this moment, Malin?”
“What? Am I?” Malin Stoltz sat up with a jolt and looked around.
“Right now are you Malin or someone else?”
“My name is not Malin,” Stoltz said.
“Then what is your name?”
“My name is Maiken Storberget,” Malin Stoltz said.
“So why do you call yourself Malin?”
“It was Karen’s idea,” the skinny woman said.
Maiken Storberget. Anette was really confused now, but she didn’t let the other woman see.
Curry returned to the interview room. “Right, I have had a chat with your doctor. He asked me to give you his best and tell you that he’s on the way.”
He had completely turned off his aggression. And there was no need for it anyway. As she sat in front of them, Anette began to wonder if Malin Stoltz really was the woman they were looking for. She would have to be a very good liar. Which was a possibility. She’d told them she had a mental illness. That she was not always herself. But Anette had met her fair share of liars throughout the years, and if Malin Stoltz was one of them, she was extremely good. Anette switched off the recorder and excused herself. She pulled Curry out into the corridor, leaving Malin Stoltz alone in the interview room.
“What did the doctor say?”
“Malin is telling the truth,” Curry replied. “She’s been in and out of institutions since she was a kid. If the man I spoke to really was a doctor, then this case is so strange that I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Did he tell you what she suffers from?”
“No, doctor-patient confidentiality and all that, but he was happy to confirm that she’s off her rocker.”
“Curry . . .”
“Mentally ill. Damn it, Anette, that woman has killed four children, and I have to watch my tongue?”
“Make sure he is a real doctor, and get someone to run a check on Maiken Storberget.”
“Who is she?”
Anette nodded in the direction of the room.
“Stoltz?”
“So she says. Please?”
“Sure,” Curry said.
Anette returned to the interview room and restarted the recorder.
“Friday, May fourth, 2012, the time is 2240, present is Police Prosecutor Anette Goli, who is interviewing Malin Stoltz.”
“Maiken Storberget,” Stoltz said, but suddenly she didn’t seem quite so sure.
“What would you like me to call you?” Anette asked her kindly.
“Maiken, I think,” Stoltz said.
“Right, Maiken it is. Would you like some more water, Maiken?”
“No, thank you, this is fine.”
“Do you know why you’re here, Maiken?”
“Yes, because Karen and I tricked the old people. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s not why you’re here, Maiken.”
“Isn’t it?” Maiken Storberget gave Anette an odd look.
“Are you quite sure that you don’t want a lawyer present?”
“Yes, I’m sure. So why am I here?”
“You’re suspected of the murder of four girls aged six and the abduction of six-year-old Marion Munch.”
“Oh . . . no, no, no, no.”
“You need to sit down, Maiken.”
“Oh, no, no . . . no, no, I’m telling you no, I don’t have anything to do with that. Oh, no. No, no, no.”
Anette already regretted agreeing to take off her handcuffs. Maiken Storberget looked as if she were about to harm herself.
“Please sit down, Maiken.”
“I’ve got nothing to do with that.”
“Please sit down, Maiken.”
“That business, oh, no, no, no. I didn’t do it, I’m telling you.”
“If you promise me that you’ll sit down, then I will listen to you, how about that?” Anette said in her nicest voice as her finger edged nearer the button under the table. She was reluctant to summon uniformed officers, which would be strictly a last resort.
Maiken Storberget looked at her momentarily before she decided to sit down.
“Maiken?”
“Yes?”
“Let’s forget what I said, shall we?”
“Okay,” Maiken said quizzically, and wiped away a tear.
“What were you just telling me about?”
“The old people?” Maiken nodded, sitting up in the chair.
“Which old people?”
“Old people in the nursing home,” Maiken said quietly. “I met Karen in Hønefoss. At a group for people who can’t have children. We became friends. It was her idea, she said she knew someone.”
“Who?”
“A priest. Well, he wasn’t a priest to begin with—I think he sold cars—but he became a priest and took money from people who were going to die.”
“Their inheritance?”
Mia had briefed the team about the church that had been trying to con Munch’s mother out of her money.
Maiken Storberget nodded. “We got paid for every name we supplied them with, people who were . . .”
“People who were?”
Maiken hesitated. “Well, you know, old, whom we might persuade to believe in God.”
She was clearly ashamed now. She wrung her thin hands in her lap.
“And for how long did this continue?”
“Oh, a long time. A long time. We conned a lot of people.”
The door opened, and Curry entered the room. Anette spoke into the microphone.
“The time is 2247. Investigator Jon Larsen has just entered the room. The interview with Malin Stoltz, Maiken Storberget continues.” She looked up at Curry, who nodded.
“It’s all true,” he said.
“So who is Karen?” Anette said.
“Don’t you know Karen?” Maiken said.
“Who is Karen?” Curry said.
“No, we don’t know Karen,” Anette said.
“I know Karen,” said Munch, who had suddenly appeared in the room.
Anette hadn’t even heard the door open.
“The time is 2249. The head of the special unit, Holger Munch, has just entered the interview room,” Anette said into the microphone.
“Where is Karen?” Munch said, taking a seat at the head of the table.
Maiken Storberget looked embarrassed at Munch’s arrival. They recognized each other. And Maiken had been part of the attempt to trick the Munch family out of their inheritance.
“I’m sorry, Holger,” Maiken mumbled, looking at her lap. “I just wanted a baby. Why can’t I have a baby when everybody else can?”
“It’s quite all right, Malin,” Munch said calmly, placing his hand on her shoulder. “I just want to know where Karen is.”
“Maiken,” Anette corrected him.
“Eh?” Munch said, turning to her.
Anette had seen her boss exhausted before, but never like this. He could barely lift his head. If she hadn’t known that he never touched alcohol, she would have sworn that he’d been drinking.
“Maiken Storberget,” Curry said, nodding to Munch to reassure him.
“Maiken? Okay, Maiken,” Munch said. “Where is Karen?”
“Oh, no, no,” Maiken said, rocking back and forth in her chair.
“Munch?” Anette said, but he took no notice of her.
“I need to know where Karen is, do you understand? I have to know where she is, now!”
Munch leaned forward and grabbed the skinny woman’s shoulders. Maiken Storberget reacted intuitively and covered her face with her hands.
“No, no, no!”
“Munch,” Anette warned him.
“Where is Karen?” Munch shouted, shaking the frail woman.
“Munch!” Anette screamed.
“Where is Karen!?”
Munch was throttling her violently now. Anette was about to get up, but Curry beat her to it. The stocky police officer put his strong arms around Munch and guided him out of the interview room.
“Are you all right, Maiken?” Anette said when they were alone once more.
The emaciated woman looked up at her with terrified eyes and nodded softly.
“I just need a word with the other two, and then I’ll be back, okay?”
Maiken Storberget nodded again.
“And listen?”
Maiken looked up at her. “Yes?”
“It will be all right. I believe you.”
Maiken wiped away a tear. “Thank you so much.”
Anette smiled, placed her hand on Maiken’s shoulder, and left the room.
“What do you think you’re doing, Munch?”
Outside in the corridor, Curry still had Munch in a tight hold.
“Sorry,” Munch babbled. “She has Marion. Karen. She has my granddaughter. She has Marion.”
“Calm down,” Curry said.
“Find a cell for Maiken,” Anette said calmly. “I’ll deal with Holger.”
Curry reluctantly released his hold of the light-brown duffel coat. He returned to the interview room and left the two of them alone in the corridor.
“Are you okay, Holger?” Anette said, putting her hand on her boss’s shoulder.
“She has my granddaughter,” Munch said again.
“Who is Karen?” Anette said, still calm.
“She works at the nursing home,” Munch groaned. “She has my granddaughter, Anette. My granddaughter.”
“We will find her,” Anette said as her cell rang.
“Anette speaking.”
“Get me Holger,” said a breathless Gabriel Mørk.
She handed the phone to Munch.
“Yes?”
Munch listened briefly to Gabriel and ended the call almost immediately.
“The Kiese film. We have the GPS coordinates. Take Curry with you, okay?”
Munch ran down the corridor without waiting for an answer.