Holger Munch had rung the bell again, knocked a couple of times and was about to leave, when the door finally opened and Mia appeared.
‘What time do you call this?’
Mia flashed him a wry smile and let him into the flat.
‘Four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon?’ Munch said.
He took off his shoes and looked in vain for a peg for his coat, so he put it on the floor and followed her into the living room.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ Mia said. ‘I haven’t got round to unpacking yet. Can I get you something? A cup of tea? I take it you’re still not drinking alcohol?’
Munch looked for an undertone in the last sentence, a hint that it had been too long, that he should have visited her sooner, but he could find none.
‘I was just about to have a shower. Do you mind waiting?’
‘No, of course not,’ Munch said.
‘Good. I’ll be two minutes.’
Mia disappeared into the bathroom, while Munch stayed in the middle of the living room, not knowing quite what to do with himself. Haven’t got round to unpacking was an understatement. The place reminded him of his old flat in Hønefoss. He had never unpacked either, never had the motivation to turn the bedsit into a home, and this flat was the same. There was a mattress on the floor under the window with a duvet and a pillow. Stacks of cardboard boxes were dumped about the place. Some looked as if an attempt had been made to open them, before they were closed again. The walls were bare, and there was hardly any furniture.
It looked as if Mia had made an effort at some point. There were Ikea boxes here and there, a white chair partly assembled, the legs still on the floor next to the instructions, a small table she had at least managed to put together. Munch sat down heavily on a low couch, put the case file on the table. He did not like what he saw here.
She looked extremely ill. Again. Almost as bad as on Hitra. He had shuddered at the sight of her then, and he got the same feeling now. Mia, normally strong, brimming with energy and clear-eyed, reduced to a ghostly version of herself. There was a half-empty bottle of Armagnac and a glass on the floor next to the mattress; three empty pizza boxes were stacked in a corner. Munch felt guilty again. He should have visited her sooner. She looked dreadful. The last time they had met, that evening down at Justisen, she had seemed more cheerful, harbouring some kind of hope that things would work out, but now her eyes looked just like they had out on Hitra. Absent. Lifeless.
Munch got up and fetched his cigarettes from his duffel coat in the hallway.
‘Can I smoke inside or shall I go out on the balcony?’ he called out towards the bathroom, but she had turned on the shower and there was no reply, so he opted for the balcony. He stood outside, freezing, as he watched the last of the daylight disappear, and Bislett Stadium and the rest of the city descend into mute darkness.
A sick bastard.
Munch allowed himself a minute to process it all.
Not in front of the team. Never. Professional. Measured. Calm. Resourceful. It was why he was the boss, he never let the others see what the cases did to him, but he could feel it creeping up on him now; the memory of what he had seen in Hurum disturbed him greatly. They had had many cases. And Munch always felt compassion for the victim, the family; he felt the extreme tragedy that hit people who lost a loved one, but most of them had a rational explanation. Random arguments with unhappy outcomes. Scores being settled among the city’s criminal gangs. Jealousy. Sometimes the cases he worked had an element of humanity. Saying that a killing could be human did not make it acceptable, but in his profession – and he never said it out loud, but he often thought it – he was always relieved when there was, ultimately, an explanation he could understand.
Not this time.
This was not human.
Munch fetched his duffel coat from the corridor, went back outside on the balcony and lit another cigarette. He saw Mia slip out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and disappear towards one of the bedrooms, presumably to a wardrobe, or a box of clothes; he felt a little uneasy again, about everything, the whole situation. Not so long ago, she had chosen to leave reality behind. Hide away, all alone on an island in the sea. And he had brought her back. They had used her because they needed her, and then they had tossed her aside, leaving her unsupported. No, not them. It was Mikkelson who had left her high and dry. The department. The system. Not him. Had it been up to Holger Munch, Mia Krüger would have stayed on doing whatever the hell she wanted, as long as she carried on working with him.
‘If you’re going to leave the door open, you might as well be smoking inside.’
Mia appeared from one of the bedrooms, smiling, wearing tight black trousers, a white roll-neck jumper and a towel wrapped around her head, which she removed and used to start drying her hair.
‘Oh, right, sorry.’ Munch smiled. He hadn’t thought about it; his mind had been on other things.
He chucked the cigarette into the street below him and went inside, closing the balcony door behind him this time.
‘If I were still working as an investigator,’ Mia smiled, sitting down on the mattress below the window, ‘I would have deduced that if Holger Munch happened to drop by on a Sunday afternoon with a file full of photographs, it meant that something horrendous had occurred in the outside world, that the department was desperate, and that I might be needed back at work?’
Munch sank back into the sofa.
‘Unofficially. And it’ll cost you,’ he said.
‘So you want me to grovel, is that it?’
Again Munch searched for an undertone in her voice, but again he failed to find it. She seemed relieved, happy, almost. The dead eyes that had met him in the doorway had regained a little life, and she appeared to welcome his visit.
‘So, what have we got?’ she said, dropping the towel on to the floor.
‘Do you want to see for yourself, or do you want my take on it?’
‘I have a choice?’ Mia said, taking the file from the table.
Munch saw her eyes change as she opened it and started arranging the pictures on the floor in front of her.
‘We found her yesterday morning,’ Munch began. ‘On the far side of Hurumlandet. A few hundred metres into the woods. A hiker – no, some kind of biologist, a botanist, out photographing plants – came across her, found her like this, in the middle of—’
‘A ritual,’ Mia said. She sounded distant.
Munch sat quietly as Mia placed the last pictures on the floor.
‘Seems like it. But …’
‘What?’ Mia said, without looking up.
‘Do you want me to be quiet, or do you want …?’ Munch said, with a sudden feeling that he was intruding.
‘Yes, no, sorry. Carry on, please,’ Mia mumbled, opening the Armagnac bottle on the floor and filling a filthy glass to the brim.
‘At the moment, as you said, it looks like a ritual,’ Munch continued. ‘The wig. The feathers. The candles. The posing of her arms.’
‘A pentagram,’ Mia said, raising the glass to her lips.
‘Yes, that was what Ylva said.’
‘Ylva?’
‘Kyrre was reassigned,’ Munch said. ‘And Ylva had just graduated from the police college, so …’
‘Like me?’ Mia smiled, shifting her gaze to the pictures once more.
‘No, because you never finished, did you?’ Munch said kindly.
‘You didn’t give me a chance! So what’s the deal?’
‘With Ylva?’
‘No, with me,’ Mia said, holding up a picture from the floor.
‘What do you mean?’
‘With Mikkelson. What’s the deal this time? Wait, let me guess: I’m back – if I agree to continue seeing the psychologist?’
‘Yep,’ Munch said, shifting in the chair.
‘You can smoke in here. There’s an ashtray somewhere – in one of the kitchen cupboards over there, I think.’ Mia pointed. She still hadn’t taken her eyes off the pictures.
‘Camilla Green,’ Munch said, once he had lit his cigarette. ‘Aged seventeen. Reported missing three months ago from some kind of institution for troubled teenagers. The preliminary autopsy report shows that her stomach contained animal feed.’
‘What?’ Mia said, looking up at him.
‘Pellets.’
‘Christ.’ Mia turned her gaze back to the photographs.
She took a big swig of the Armagnac. Her eyes were distant now. He had seen this so many times before. She was no longer here.
When his mobile rang and he went out on the balcony to answer it, she did not even notice.
‘Yes? Munch speaking.’
‘It’s Ludvig. We got her.’
‘Who?’
‘Helene Eriksen. The woman who reported the girl missing. She’s coming in.’
‘I’m on my way,’ Munch said swiftly, and rang off.
When he returned to the living room, Mia had already refilled her glass.
‘So?’ he asked.
‘So what?’ Mia said, looking up at him with glazed eyes.
‘What do you think?’
‘I’ll be in the office tomorrow. For now, I want to be alone with these.’
‘OK,’ Munch said. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? Do you want me to – well, get you some food or something?’
Mia waved him away, her eyes already back on the pictures.
‘Then I’ll see you tomorrow.’