I'm Travelling Alone (22 page)

‘Who is this?’ he said again.

‘It’s not fair, is it?’ the voice repeated.

Wold moved further away from the crowd, crossed the street and found a quieter location.

‘What’s not fair?’ he asked.

Again there was silence at the other end.

‘Hello?’

Wold could feel himself growing irritated.

‘Hello? Listen, whoever you are, I haven’t got time for this.’

‘It’s not fair, is it?’ the strange voice said again.

‘What’s not fair? Who is this?’

‘It’s not fair that you have to stand so far away,’ the voice said.

At that moment, a red Peugeot arrived. Mikkel caught a glimpse of Mia Krüger and one of her colleagues. The Peugeot drove up to the cordon and was let in by a police officer who was guarding it.

‘Damn!’ Mikkel said.

Where was the photographer? He needed pictures of this.

‘Listen, find someone else to pester,’ he snarled down the phone. ‘I’m busy.’

He was just about to hit the off button when the grating voice came back.

‘Number three,’ the voice said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s number three,’ the voice said again. ‘Her name is Karoline. Are you still going to hang up?’

With this, the caller got Mikkel Wold’s full attention.

‘Who are you?’

‘Donald Duck. Who do you think I am?’ the voice mocked him.

‘No, I meant …’

The voice laughed briefly.

‘Do you want me to call one of the others? Tønning from
Dagbladet
? Ruud from
VG
? One of those?’

‘No, no, no Ö eh, no, no,’ Mikkel Wold said. ‘I’m right here.’

He retreated even further from the crowd.

‘That’s good,’ the voice said.

Mikkel tried to get out his notepad and pen from his pocket.

‘Are you going to be my friend?’ the grating voice said.

‘Perhaps,’ Mikkel replied.

‘Perhaps?’

‘Yes, I would like to be your friend,’ he stuttered. ‘Who is Karoline?’

‘Who do you think Karoline is?’

‘Is she … Number three?’

‘No, Karoline is number four. Andrea was number three. Don’t you pay attention? Haven’t you been to Disenveien?’

Something was happening over by the cordons. Another vehicle was on its way in. Forensics.

‘How do I know that …’

‘How do you know what?’ the voice said.

‘I mean …’

Mikkel was unable to think of anything else to say. His forehead was hot and his palms were sweaty.

‘They’re so cute when they’re asleep, aren’t they?’ the voice said.

‘Who is?’

‘The little ones.’

‘How do I know that you’re not just messing with me?’

‘Do you want me to send you a finger in the post?’

Mikkel Wold felt a shiver down his spine. He was trying to keep calm, but it was getting harder.

‘No, absolutely not,’ he stammered.

The voice chuckled to itself again.

‘You have to ask the right questions,’ the voice said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘At press conferences, why don’t you ask the right questions?’

‘What are the right questions?’ Wold said.

‘Why did the pig drip all over the floor?’ the voice said.

‘Why did the …? What did you say …?

Mikkel tried desperately to get out his notepad without dropping his mobile.

‘Tick-tock,’ said the grating voice, and the call was ended.

Chapter 32

Holger Munch peeled off the thin latex gloves and went outside on the terrace to have a cigarette. Christ Almighty, what a start to the day. He had slept badly the night before, tossing and turning in his bed. He had yet to discuss this business about the inheritance with his mother, and he had an uncomfortable feeling that it might be the very problem that was keeping him awake, when they had more important matters to deal with.
Two girls in one day?
He lit his cigarette and peered into the house through the window. The crime-scene technicians were still at work and the girl’s father had been driven down to Police Headquarters in Grønland. They had yet to trace the mother; the father had been in shock and had made little sense. It would appear that the two of them were no longer together: they had separated, it was his week with the daughter; the mother had gone with some female friends to a cabin where there was no mobile coverage. The doors of the French windows to the terrace had been smashed. There were traces of blood on the ground floor, on the stairs and in the little girl’s bedroom. Andrea. Someone had taken her from her bedroom. Munch took a deep drag on his cigarette and tried to fight off a budding headache. He rang Mia. She answered after only a few seconds.

‘What have you got?’ Munch asked her.

‘Karoline Mykle, aged six, missing from her home.’

‘Any sign of a break-in?’

‘No, the key was under the mat.’

Dear Lord. Munch heaved a sigh. Under the mat. Did people still do that these days?

‘Blood?’

‘Traces of blood from the passage and into the bedroom.’

‘Parents?’

‘Cecilie and John-Erik Mykle. Neither of them has a record. He works on the oil rigs. We’re trying to contact him. She’s a teacher.’

‘A teacher?’

‘Yes, but it’s not her. She’s in a state of complete shock. I’ve sent her off to Ullevål Hospital. She didn’t even know where she was. She kept saying she didn’t have time to talk to us. She had to take Karoline to nursery.’

‘I see,’ Munch said.

‘We’re about to start door-to-door inquiries to see if anyone saw anything.’

‘Yes, that’s what we’re about to do as well,’ Munch said.

‘ALPHA1 procedure on this one?’

Munch nodded.

‘Holger?’

‘What? Yes, I want everyone working on this. Everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. I want them to check every single road, every sodding footpath, understand?’

‘Understand,’ Mia said, and ended the call.

Holger took another deep drag on his cigarette. His headache had arrived with a vengeance. Some water. He needed fluids. And food. His mobile rang again.

‘Yes, Munch here.’

‘It’s Gabriel Mørk. Is it a bad time?’

‘Depends what it is,’ Munch growled.

‘You know that private job you gave me?’

Munch rubbed his forehead.

‘The code,’ Gabriel continued.

Munch sifted through his memories before the penny dropped. The maths puzzle he had been unable to solve. The one the Swedish girl had sent him on the Net.

‘Did you crack it?’

Munch walked back inside the house. He took care not to contaminate any of the bloodstains or touch anything. The technicians were still at work.

‘I think I understand what it is, but I need more.’

‘What you mean, more?’

‘Do you want to talk about it later?’

Munch walked through to the front of the house, went outside and lit another cigarette. They had moved the police tape further down the street now. Keeping the press at bay for as long as they could. He dreaded reporting the latest developments to Mikkelson. Two dead girls. No suspects. And now another two were missing. There would be hell to pay down at Grønland.

‘I think it’s a Gronsfeld,’ Gabriel said.

‘A what?’

‘A Gronsfeld cipher. A code language. It’s a deviant of Vigenère, but it uses numbers rather than letters. However, I need more. Did you get anything else?’

Munch struggled to concentrate.

‘More? I’m not sure. What would that be?’

‘Letters and numbers. The way Gronsfeld works is that both parties, both the sender and the recipient, possess the same combination of letters and numbers. It makes it impossible for an outsider to crack the code.’

‘I can’t think of anything,’ Munch said, just as Kim walked through the gate. ‘We’ll have to do it later.’

‘OK,’ Gabriel said, and hung up.

‘Anything?’ Munch asked.

Kim shook his head.

‘Most people are out at work at this time, so we’ll do another round in the early evening.’

‘Nothing? Damn, surely somebody must have seen something?’

‘Not so far.’

‘Do it again,’ Munch said.

‘But we’ve just …’

‘I said, do it again.’

The young police officer nodded and walked back out through the gate.

Munch was just about to go back inside the house when Mia called again.

‘Yes?’

He could tell from her voice that they had discovered something.

‘It’s a woman’ was all she said.

‘We have a witness?’

‘A pensioner living right opposite. Trouble sleeping. He looked out of his window, he thinks it was about four o’clock in the morning. Saw someone hanging around a letterbox. So he went outside to check.’

‘Tough pensioner.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He shouted at her. She ran away.’

‘And he’s quite sure that it was a woman?’

‘He’s a hundred per cent sure. He was only a few metres away from her.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘I told you so, didn’t I?’ Mia said eagerly. ‘I knew it.’

‘Yes, you told me so. Is he with you now?’

‘We’re bringing him in.’

‘See you at the office in ten minutes?’

‘Sure,’ Mia said, and hung up.

Munch didn’t exactly run, but it wasn’t far short. A woman. He quickly got behind the wheel and drove towards the cordon. There was a sea of flashlights when he passed the huge crowd of journalists and reporters. At least they had something for the vultures.

A woman.

Munch placed the blue flashing light on the roof and drove to the city centre as fast as he could.

Chapter 33

Tom-Erik Sørlie, a Norwegian veteran of Afghanistan, was sitting by his living-room window when two police cars pulled up on the road below his house and started putting up barriers. He picked up his binoculars from the coffee table and adjusted the lenses until the officers came into focus. He had listened to the police radio all day, as he always did, and he knew that something had happened. Two little girls had been killed, he believed another two had gone missing and now police had decided to check all the roads going out of Oslo. He adjusted the lenses again. Armed police officers with helmets and machine pistols, Heckler & Koch MP5s – he knew the gun well, had used it many times himself. The armed police officers had finished setting up the checkpoint and were now stopping cars. Fortunately for the drivers, it was early in the day. Most of the traffic was heading into the capital, not out.

He put down the binoculars and turned up the sound of the news. His TV was always on. As was his computer. And the police radio. He liked to keep up. Keep himself informed. It was his way of feeling alive now that he was no longer part of the action.

Lex, his puppy, stirred in its basket before padding over to him. It settled by his feet with its head to one side and its tongue hanging out. The Alsatian wanted to go for a walk. Tom-Erik Sørlie stroked the dog’s head and tried to keep an eye on the screens. A TV2 reporter appeared in front of a camera with a microphone in her hand. A residential development in Skullerud could be seen in the background. Police cordons. A girl had gone missing from there. He had heard the news one hour ago. He got up and grabbed the Alsatian puppy by the collar. Guided it out on the steps, into the garden and attached it to the running line. He did not have the energy to go for a walk now. His head was hurting.

It had grown dark outside before the police took down the barriers in the road. A whole day. Someone in the Department must have written them a blank cheque. He ate his dinner in front of the television. A photofit appeared on the screen. A woman. A witness had seen her in Skullerud. Good luck, Tom-Erik Sørlie thought. It could be anyone. Footage from a press conference. A female public prosecutor. The girls were still missing. No leads. Two murder investigators getting into a car. A bearded man in a beige duffel coat. A woman with long, black hair. Both were sharp-eyed. The man in the duffel coat flapped his hand to make the journalists go away. No comment.

He turned the volume down on the television and got up to make himself a cup of coffee. Was that a noise he heard? Was there someone in the garden? He put on his shoes and went outside. The Alsatian was no longer attached to the running line.

‘Lex?’

He walked around the house to the back garden and had a shock when he saw the apple tree.

Someone had killed his dog and hanged it by its neck from a skipping rope.

Chapter 34

Mia Krüger crossed the road and started walking up Tøyengata. She found a lozenge in her pocket and tried to ignore the newspaper headlines. She passed yet another kiosk which had her life on display. M
YSTERY WOMAN: STILL NO LEADS
. The photofit of the woman seen by the pensioner was on the front page. There was nothing wrong with the photofit. Just like there was nothing wrong with the witness observation. The only problem was that it could be anyone. Nine hundred phone calls, and that was just on day one. People thought it was their neighbour, their workmate, their niece, someone they had seen queuing for a ferry the day before. The switchboard at Police Headquarters had been jammed; they had had to shut it down, take a break. Rumour had it that waiting time to get through had been up to two hours. H
AVE YOU SEEN
K
AROLINE OR
A
NDREA
? New front pages, big photographs of the girls, blown up as if to mock her.
You can’t do your job. This is your responsibility. If those girls die, it’ll be your fault.

And what was all that blood about? Mia Krüger didn’t understand it. It made no sense. It didn’t fit with the other evidence. They had tested the blood; it belonged to neither of the girls. It wasn’t even human. It came from a pig. The killer was taunting them, that was what she was doing. Or he. Mia Krüger was starting to have doubts. Something didn’t add up. With the woman seen in Skullerud. With the photofit. She got the feeling the whole thing was a game.
Look how easy it all is for me. I can do whatever I want.

I win. You lose.