Mia Krüger pulled up in front of the white cottage with a feeling that something was wrong. The unexpected meeting last night. This hacker, Skunk, who, according to Gabriel, hated the police, had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Even charmed her. But on her way home and, later, on the sofa with her notes, she had started to question his motives. Why had he appeared in the first place? How had he found her? What did they really know about this young man? Skunk? They did not even know his real name. He had discovered this film. By accident? On some mysterious server? Which now for some reason was suddenly gone? She shook her head at herself and found her mobile in her pocket.
‘Ludvig Grønlie.’
‘Yes, hi, it’s Mia.’
‘Hi, Mia, where are you?’
Mia looked at the white cottage in front of her. The back of beyond would be the kindest way to describe it; she had spent so long finding the place that it had started to grow dark. She had been on the verge of giving up when she finally spotted the small access road, which had been so well hidden it was tempting to think someone had done it on purpose.
‘In the countryside,’ Mia said.
‘Where?’
‘I’m just checking something. Would you do me a favour?’
‘Of course,’ Ludvig said. ‘What do you need?’
‘I need some information about an address.’
‘Sure. Which one?’
‘Ullevålsveien number 61.’
‘Right, what do you want to know?’
‘Everything you can find.’
‘OK?’ Grønlie hesitated. ‘It would be a bit easier if I knew what I was looking for?’
‘Sorry. The address only cropped up yesterday. I’m mostly interested in anything about a bookshop selling old books on the ground floor of the building.’
‘An antiquarian bookshop?’
‘Exactly.’ Mia rang off, put her phone in her pocket and got out of the car.
The small white cottage stood facing her. There was a red outhouse on one side of the yard. Otherwise, just forest. Dense trees covered in hoar frost. And not a sound to be heard anywhere. Who could live in a place like this? There was nothing here. Mia wondered if she should ring the doorbell, although she knew there would be no one at home.
Jim Fuglesang.
The man with the white bicycle helmet.
This was where he lived. In the small white cottage surrounded by tall trees in the middle of nowhere; Mia thought it looked like something out of a horror film.
Claustrophobic.
It was deserted.
Not a sound.
A man with mental-health issues. Who had been readmitted to Dikemark Hospital. Impossible to interview. When they had first spoken to him, she had not believed that he was the man they were looking for. An impromptu confession, a mentally unstable person who thought that he had committed a murder. Nothing they could take seriously, of course, so they had released him immediately and she had dismissed him from her mind, but now she was having second thoughts. What would she have done if she had been the killer? If she wanted to avoid capture, how would she have done it, if not this way? Who would suspect an idiot in a white bicycle helmet who pretends that he doesn’t know what he is talking about? And Skunk was similar. Who would suspect a young hacker who loathes the police but then suddenly turns up to help them because his ‘conscience’ tells him he must?
A sick bastard.
Mia looked for the doorbell but found none so she knocked on the door instead. No one at home. As she had expected. Jim Fuglesang was drugged up to the eyeballs at Dikemark, probably still wearing his bicycle helmet, but even so she raised her fist and knocked on the white door a second time.
Who would want to live out here?
What kind of person would choose to live like this?
Mia stuffed her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket, waited a few minutes until she had established that no one was coming, then calmly walked around the house, across the frosty grass, and stepped up on the veranda on the other side.
It did not take her long to open the door. She slipped softly inside and uttered a faint Hello, is anyone here?, but there was no reply. Well, at least that part was true. Jim Fuglesang really must be locked up at Dikemark. She had the whole house to herself. Entering without a warrant was illegal, of course, but Mia Krüger had stopped caring about such formalities a long time ago. Munch obviously had to follow the rules, apply for search warrants, which, given the hopeless bureaucracy in which they were mired, always took days, or it did when they had no specific grounds; they might have in this case, but she did not have the patience to wait. Mia walked across the living-room floor and found a light switch on a wall.
The room that appeared was pretty much as she had expected. Tidy. Clean. Clearly the home of a single man. It did not take Mia long to find what she was looking for. She quickly located the photo albums, neatly lined up in the bookcase facing her and, as she had also hoped, in meticulous chronological order.
‘Do you like taking pictures?’
‘Yes.’
You did not need to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to have noticed it. The glue marks on the back of the pictures. Old, brittle glue. The pictures used to be in an album. Cheap, brown plastic albums were lined up on the bottom shelf. The first was labelled 1989, the last 2012. She felt a twinge of compassion as she took out the first few albums, sat down on the beige sofa and started flicking through them. Not a single human being featured in any of them. The pictures showed trees, squirrels, steps, a feeding table. All dated and with a caption. A nice budgie, 21 February 1994. The birch leaves are out, 5 May 1998. She started turning the pages more quickly because she knew exactly what she was looking for, and it was easy to find: Blank spaces. Pages in the books where the pictures used to be. She soon found them. The dead cat, 4 April 2006. The poor dog, 8 August 2007. Six years ago. Five years ago. That long? With a one-year interval? Why would they …?
Her train of thought was interrupted when the darkness that had now settled across the yard outside suddenly lit up briefly, only to grow dark again. She had not heard the car arrive, but there could be no doubt.
There was someone outside.
Mia reacted quickly; she returned the albums to the shelf, slipped out through the veranda door and hid behind the corner of the house, her lips pressed shut, so that her breathing would not give her away.
How quiet it was out here.
She could hear her own heartbeat.
She could hear her own breathing.
Who would want to live so far away from everyone?
And then a sudden thought:
Why the hell had she not brought a gun?
She was banned, of course, from carrying a weapon. That applied to all members of Oslo’s police force. Officers were only allowed to carry a weapon if they were part of an armed response unit or had special permission. Mia had always preferred Glocks and had tried several models: the Glock 17, which was the standard model, but she also had a Glock 26, which was lighter and easier to conceal on her body. It was little comfort now. She could kick herself for not thinking to bring one.
A car in the yard.
She heard someone get out of the vehicle, followed by a knock on the door. First once, then twice. A visitor. Jim Fuglesang had a visitor. She took a deep breath, rounded the corner. Her police instinct took over and she scanned the area. There was a man on the steps, he weighed approximately eighty kilos and wore a coat; there was a white van parked in the yard, two seats in the front, no one in the passenger seat; a quick look in every direction, no other movement; the man on the steps appeared to be alone and was almost as startled at seeing her as she was at seeing him.
‘Who are you?’ the man stuttered.
‘Hi, I’m sorry,’ Mia said, put on a smile and walked towards him. ‘Mia Krüger, Oslo Police. I’m looking for Jim Fuglesang. Does he live here?’
‘Er, yes,’ the man with the beard said.
‘It doesn’t look as if he’s in,’ Mia said, still smiling.
‘Er, no,’ the man said. ‘Police? Has Jim done something wrong?’
‘No, no, it’s just a routine visit. And you are?’
The man on the steps still looked shocked at meeting anyone out here.
‘Henrik,’ he said. ‘I, well …’
He gestured towards his van, and she saw it now, the logo on the side.
Hurumlandet Supermarket.
‘I deliver his shopping, but I hadn’t heard from him for a few days so I thought he might not have been able to leave the house, and I …’
‘Do you know him well?’
‘No, I wouldn’t say that,’ the man replied. ‘But he has been a customer for years. He’s a bit – well, at times he needs help.’
Mia had another quick look around. There was hardly any light left. Bloody autumn. She had not come here solely to check the albums; she had another reason which was just as important. She had hoped to try to find the path leading to the lake where Fuglesang had taken the pictures.
‘Doesn’t look like he’s in,’ Mia said with a light shrug.
‘He’s not in any trouble, is he?’
‘No, it was about a … traffic incident in the area, a collision. We’re just checking to see if anyone saw anything.’
‘Oh dear,’ the man said, and walked down the steps with a worried look on his face. ‘A collision? Was anyone hurt?’
‘No,’ Mia said, looking around irritably again.
The light had disappeared suddenly. As if someone had turned off a switch.
Shit.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ the man offered. ‘I mean, I know everyone around here. Where did it happen?’
‘Is that your shop?’ Mia said, pointing at the name on the van.
‘Yes,’ the man said.
‘Henrik, did you say your name was?’
‘Yes, Henrik Eriksen, I—’
‘I’ll call you if I have any questions, OK?’ She put the smile back on.
‘Yes, of course. Would you like my number?’
‘I can find it, if I need it,’ Mia said, and got back in her car.
She turned the car around in the small yard and drove down the narrow road.
Bloody darkness.
She would have to come back some other time. She had reached the main road when her mobile rang.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Ludvig.’
‘Yes?’
‘You wanted to know about that address?’
‘What did you find?’
‘Not very much. The building is mainly flats, but there are businesses on the ground floor.’
Finally, a streetlight appeared at the side of the road, and Mia relaxed. She was back in civilization.
‘Any second-hand bookshops?’
‘No, not as far as I can see.’
Crap.
The creepy feeling came back. Last night’s unexpected meeting. Out of the blue. He had tricked her. The hacker. Skunk.
Bastard.
‘Thank you, Ludvig,’ Mia said, and drove back to Oslo.