Curry swallowed another mouthful of coffee as Mia returned to the incident room and sat down again.
‘Everything all right?’ Munch asked.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Mia said.
‘Good.’ Munch looked as if he did not know what to say next.
He was still standing next to the projector, strangling a yawn and scratching his beard.
‘Right,’ he began, but said nothing more.
Curry felt for him. He had slept on the sofa in Mia’s flat again, having first drunk nearly half a bottle of whisky. He had passed out and almost failed to hear his phone when it started ringing at three o’clock in the morning.
He was totally sober now, or at least he felt like it. A mixture of incomprehension and outrage had cast a shadow over everything else.
This is bigger than we thought it was.
What kind of sick son of a bitch would do something like this? Trap a young girl inside a cage? For months? Force her to crawl inside a big wheel to get light? To get food?
Munch continued his struggle at the front of the room to find the right words. He looked like he would give almost anything to put his head on a pillow.
Curry regarded himself as a tough guy, but he had found it hard to know what to do with himself when the film had rolled across the screen. The terrified face of Camilla Green, totally exhausted.
The poor girl.
‘Any questions?’ Munch said eventually. ‘Before we start analysing what we have seen?’
He looked around at the group, but no one said anything.
‘Mia?’ he said, handing over his spot by the projector to his colleague, who did not look as if the lack of sleep troubled her in any way.
‘OK,’ Mia said, pressing a button. ‘Some of you probably want to see the film again, and you’ll be able to do that, of course – there’s a copy of it on our server – but for now I think we should take the time to study the footage in detail. We have divided it into a series of stills, and we’ll start by focusing on a number of things you might have missed initially, but which we think might be important. There is obviously much more going on here than we first thought. Whoever is responsible for this will not have the chance even to think about a second victim. Not on our watch.’
She was impressive like this. Curry had always respected her, of course, but he could really see it now. How she could put aside her emotions, how she played the detective; he could almost hear the cogs in her brain whirring.
‘Why was Camilla Green so thin when we found her? We know that now. Why did she have blisters on her hands and bruises on her knees? We know that now. And, last, why did the post-mortem report show that her stomach contained only animal feed? We also know the answer to that. So we can cross all that off our list. And I realize that it might be difficult for you to accept that what you have just seen is real, but we must remember that it is. Camilla met a truly horrific end at the hands of some monster. The more we know, the easier it will be for us to catch this bastard – or bastards – am I right?’
Curry did not know why Mia made this speech; surely it did not need saying. But then he saw Ylva. She looked as if she might faint at any moment.
‘Two facts. Number one: Camilla Green was kept prisoner in a basement. Forced to live like an animal. Possibly for months. Number two: at some point the killer, or killers, murdered her, sacrificed her in something that looks very much like a ritual.’
Mia pressed the button again, and then again, back and forth between two pictures. Camilla in the basement, and in the clearing in the woods.
‘So. Question one. Motive? Is it the same motive behind both crimes?’
She looked across the table, but no one said anything, so she continued.
‘Is it all part of the same crime? Camilla being held in the basement, treated like an animal. Camilla resurfacing months later, naked this time, posed in a pentagram of candles. Is it the same motive? Is there a link?’
She looked up again and took a sip from her water bottle, and it was at that moment that Curry realized why Mia did not seem as tired as Munch. She was high. Curry felt a pang of guilt. She had been so supportive, letting him crash on her sofa, and he had not meant to pry, but he had not been able to help seeing the jars in the bathroom cabinet. The pills.
‘I’m not saying that there isn’t,’ Mia continued, nodding lightly. ‘But we have to ask ourselves. Why keep her prisoner? Why pose her naked in the woods?’
‘And what do you think, Mia?’ Kim Kolsø said. He was the first person to open his mouth.
‘I don’t know,’ Mia replied, then paused in thought before she continued. ‘I mean, doesn’t it seem odd to you? I don’t see the connection myself.’
Curry could see that several of the others were starting to notice it, too. That she was not her usual self. That there was something odd about her. Curry suspected that she’d taken an upper of some kind.
‘I don’t see any reason for any of it,’ Kim Kolsø went on. ‘Why would it be two different crimes? Two different motives? Did one sick bastard find her in the basement of another sick bastard and decide he could go one better?’
‘You may be right,’ Mia said, thinking about it again. ‘But, yes, there’s just …’
She scratched her head and took another swig from the water bottle on the table in front of her.
‘Right, great, let’s leave it for now. We have a huge amount of other evidence to look at. Move on.’
Kim glanced quickly at Curry, who glanced back at him but only shrugged his shoulders slightly.
‘OK,’ Mia continued. ‘Let’s look at some physical evidence, and then at something Holger and I have discovered.’
She clicked again, several times in a row.
‘First off. This wheel. I wouldn’t have thought you could buy it in a shop. Did someone build it? We need to look into it.’
Another picture.
‘The writing on the wall behind her. The chosen one. Why is Camilla the chosen one?’
Another picture.
‘The footage. Yes, the footage itself. Why was she filmed? Was it for personal viewing? I mean, it was found on a server. Was it shared with anyone? Was that the reason for keeping her prisoner? To film her? And later share the film with others?’
She took another sip of water, and it was obvious now. She was talking non-stop and her eyes were the size of plates.
‘That particular point, I think we’ll have an answer to once Gabriel wakes up and we get hold of this …’
She looked across to Munch, who was so exhausted that, for the first time ever, he had not taken advantage of the pauses in her briefing to have a cigarette.
‘Skunk,’ he mumbled.
Mia nodded. ‘There’s more here, obviously, but from a purely practical point of view, I think that’s the crucial stuff: where does the wheel come from? The chosen one? Was that her? Why? And …’
She got lost in her own train of thought, but Curry helped her back on track.
‘The film itself.’
‘Yes, that’s right. Thank you, Jon. The film. Why was it made? Why was it found on a server? It seems risky, doesn’t it? Sharing it?’
Mia smiled, tucked her hair behind her ear and looked across at the team again.
‘Any questions? Any comments so far?’
You should have got some sleep, Mia, Curry thought, but he did not say it out loud.
Ylva cautiously raised her hand. She seemed to be bouncing back after the initial shock.
‘You mentioned something you had found?’
‘Yes, good,’ Mia said, walking briskly up to the Mac to open a file she had prepared. ‘This is a small extract from the film. It’s about forty seconds into it. Try to see if you can spot it, OK?’ She smiled to the team. ‘Are you ready?’
Hesitant nodding all around.
Mia pressed a key on the Mac and suddenly the seventeen-year-old girl was alive on the overhead screen again. Camilla Green. She was off the wheel now and kneeling on the floor. Eager hands trying to stuff as many pellets as she could into her mouth.
Animal feed, for pity’s sake.
Bastard.
‘Did you see it?’ Mia said eagerly, looking across at the team once more when the short clip had finished.
Curry looked around, but everyone was shaking their heads, apart from Munch, who already knew what Mia was talking about but who was trying to keep his eyes open nevertheless.
‘OK,’ Mia said. ‘I’ll play it again and, this time, try to ignore Camilla. I know it’s difficult, but try to pretend she’s not there. Look at the wall behind the wheel. OK?’
Mia hit the key on the Mac again, and the short footage was replayed. Curry tried to do as Mia had said, keeping his eyes away from the girl kneeling in the front, and suddenly he saw it.
‘Shit!’ Ylva burst out, right next to him.
‘Jesus,’ Kim Kolsø mumbled.
‘Exactly,’ Mia nodded, almost triumphantly.
‘Bloody hell!’ Anette Goli exclaimed.
Holger Munch rose slowly from his chair. It was clear that he was almost at the end of his strength.
‘This is very good progress.’ He yawned. He was so tired that he struggled to put on his coat. ‘But I need a break now. We’ll meet again for a team briefing this evening. Let’s say six o’clock.’
Their fat boss put up the hood of his duffel coat, staggered across the room and left without closing the door behind him.