Investigator Jon Larsen, known as Curry to his friends, tried to get into his flat but struggled to fit the key into the keyhole.
He had promised his fiancée to stop so many times. They had been saving up for over a year. Two thousand kroner every month; Fiji was her dream destination. Three weeks in paradise. Drink exotic cocktails with parasols. Swim with colourful fish in azure seas. Time off from a job she did not really enjoy; only now he had gone and ruined it again.
Curry muttered curses under his breath and eventually managed to get the tiny key inserted into the barely visible keyhole, letting himself into the flat as quietly as he could. He tried hanging up his jacket but missed the peg and stood swaying in the hallway, wondering whether to head for the bedroom or to exile himself to the sofa immediately. It was where he ended up sleeping when he came home in this state, pissed out of his mind, incapable of explaining himself, having squandered their savings. Yet another poker game. A big loss – again. He had had good cards all night but had then gone all in with a straight, only to be met by a flush; the winner grinned at him across the table as his chips found a new owner. He had no choice but to get drunk, surely she could see that?
Shit.
He leaned against the wall, managed to kick off his shoes, staggered into the living room and steered himself in the direction of the sofa.
Fiji, that was her idea, but why did they have to fly halfway round the world for a drink? They could do that at home. Curry stumbled across the living-room floor before crashing his muscular body on to the white Ikea sofa. He put his head on one of the scatter cushions and tried to pull a blanket over himself, only getting it as far as his knees, then was woken up by the sound of his mobile, without realizing that he had even been asleep.
‘Hello?’
It was daylight outside.
‘Are you awake?’ Munch said.
‘Awake?’ Curry mumbled, unable to lift his head from the cushion.
Munch sounded stressed and bad-tempered. ‘We’re calling everyone in, can you be here for a team briefing in an hour?’
‘On a Sunday?’ Curry yawned.
‘Are you in a fit state for that?’ Munch asked him.
‘I’m …’ Curry tried.
He had been dribbling in his sleep. His cheek was wet. He struggled to get the words down from his brain and out through his mouth.
‘The office in one hour?’
‘Sure,’ Curry mumbled, and managed to half sit up on the sofa before his body sent him a brutal reminder of last night and forced him to lie down again.
‘I just need to … talk to Sunniva … cancel our Sunday walk … We were heading up to the hills for a bit of fresh air, but that …’
Curry peered anxiously around the living room through eyes he could not open fully for his fiancée, who seemed not to be at home.
‘I’m sorry to disturb your romantic plans, but I need you to come in,’ Munch said, without sounding at all apologetic.
‘What … what happened?’
‘Not on the phone. One hour, OK?’
‘Yes, of course, I’ll be there, I just need to —’ But Munch had already rung off.
Curry staggered to the kitchen, found three painkillers, which he washed down with almost a litre of water. Stumbled into the shower, where he stood until the hot water ran out.
Once he reached 13 Mariboesgate, he was about to enter the code to the front door when Anette Goli arrived. Curry liked Anette. She was a fairly quiet person, never drew much attention to herself, but she was a gifted lawyer, always straight and no-nonsense. Some people felt that Mikkelson favoured her because she sucked up to him, but he had never seen any evidence of that.
‘Morning,’ Anette said, stepping in front of him into the lift.
‘Yep,’ Curry mumbled.
The whisky-and-cigar voice, he could hear it now, and he coughed to clear his throat.
‘Late night?’ Anette asked, flashing him a droll smile.
‘No … why?’
‘You stink,’ Anette said.
‘A few drinks, that’s all,’ Curry muttered, and felt last night return with a vengeance as the slightly wobbly lift started to make its way up to the second floor.
‘So, what’s up?’ he said, attempting a smile.
‘Teenage girl found in Hurum,’ was all Anette said.
‘I see. Any … leads?’ Curry tried, as the lift reached the second floor.
Anette looked at him with a frown, then shook her head lightly and walked in front of him into the office.
Curry took that as a sign that he was better off keeping his mouth shut today. He walked into the kitchen, where he poured himself a large coffee, which he tried not to spill on his way to the incident room.
He nodded briefly to everyone in the team: Kim Kolsø, Ludvig Grønlie, Gabriel Mørk, the new woman Munch had hired recently – now, what was her name again? Something starting with Y? Short, blonde hair, pretty in her own way, although her clothes were a little too boyish for his taste. Ylva, that was it. Curry found a seat at the back of the room and carefully put his coffee cup on the table in front of him.
Munch had already taken up position by the lectern and was holding the remote control to the projector in his hand. His brow was furrowed and he was not smiling, as he usually did during team briefings.
‘Ludvig, lights off, please,’ he said curtly, pressing the button in his hand.
A photograph appeared on the overhead screen behind him. Curry jumped when he saw it. The alcohol shakes. They hit him hard now, and he regretted coming to work. He should have lied. Said he was ill. Stayed on the sofa. The sweat started pouring under his shirt; his hands were trembling, he could not control his fingers. Curry clung to his coffee cup, hoping that no one had noticed.
‘Yesterday, at 12.40, the body of a young girl was found in the woods on the far side of Hurumlandet,’ Munch said. ‘Some way beyond the path leading to a place called Haraldsfjellet. The body was discovered by Tom Petterson, a forty-six-year-old botanist who works at the University of Oslo. Petterson had gone there to photograph some plants and stumbled across the girl by accident.’
Curry had seen a lot in his lifetime and thought he must be immune by now, but this was completely different, and his hangover did not help. The naked girl. She looked terrified. Her eyes were wide open. Her body was twisted into an impossible position – a shape really – one arm pointing upwards, the other sticking out strangely from her side.
Munch clicked again. Another picture appeared.
‘According to the pathologist, the girl was strangled, possibly at the location where she was found, and posed the way we found her after death. We will look more closely at the details later, but at this stage it’s worth noting this …’
Munch clicked more quickly now, and a series of pictures appeared on the screen behind him.
‘Feathers.’
Another picture.
‘Candles.’
Another picture.
‘A wig.’
Another picture.
‘The posing of her arms.’
Another picture.
‘This tattoo. It’s a horse’s head with the letters A and F below it.’
Curry tried to drink some coffee but was unable to swallow and spat it back into the cup as discreetly as he could. He was struggling to keep up with the briefing. His eyes were swimming, and he was overcome by desperate craving for fresh air. He had still been drunk when Munch called. It was the reason he had managed to make his way to the office without collapsing completely, but now it hit him like an avalanche, and he had to steel himself in order not to flop across the table. Hooch? Had he been drinking hooch? A vague image appeared in his mind, a lift in a block of flats up by … Østerås, was it? Some guy with a moustache, women in high heels wearing much too heavy perfume, and a big jug of alcohol on the table. Christ, no wonder he felt like crap. And where was Sunniva? Had she already worked out the truth? Had she gone to stay with her mother again, for good this time?
‘And last, but not least, this.’
Munch’s voice sounded very far away.
Another picture.
‘The flower in her mouth. Her eyes wide with fear.’
‘Bloody psycho,’ Kim Kolsø hissed behind him.
Curry was unable to hold it back for much longer. All of yesterday wanted up and out of his body. He looked around desperately for the door; he wanted to run outside, but his legs refused to obey him. So he stayed where he was and took deep breaths while continuing to cling to the cup.
‘The preliminary pathology report,’ Munch continued, taking no notice of the reactions across the room, ‘shows a series of peculiarities which we’ll also look at individually, but, for now, there’s this.’
New pictures. Curry was unable to look at any of them.
‘One final picture. Grazing to her knees and elbows. The palms of her hands are heavily blistered. In addition, the girl is strangely thin. Emaciated, in fact, as you can see – practically anorexic – and we think this might be the reason.’
Munch left the last picture on the screen while he flicked through some papers in front of him.
‘According to the pathologist, the only substance found in her stomach was pellets.’
‘What?’
Now there were more reactions across the room.
‘Animal feed?’ Ludvig Grønlie asked.
‘Yes,’ Munch nodded.
‘But Jesus Christ …’
‘Pellets?’
‘How is that possible …?’
‘I don’t get it?’ said Ylva, the new girl. She looked genuinely confused.
‘There’s nothing in her stomach that resembles normal food,’ Munch said. ‘Like I said, this is just the preliminary report. Vik has promised me more tomorrow, so we’ll just have to wait for that. Meanwhile …’
Munch looked as if he were about to say something, but he was interrupted by his mobile ringing. He checked the display and decided to take the call.
‘Hello, Rikard. Did you get my message?’ he said.
Rikard Mikkelson. Curry had never heard Munch address their boss by his first name before. He saw that many of the others also exchanged looks and shrugged their shoulders in blank incomprehension.
Munch stuck a cigarette in his mouth and pointed to the balcony to indicate that they could all take a break.