I'm Traveling Alone Page 4

  He took out his cell and sent his usual reply.

  ok. thanks.

  He did not normally say thank you—this was pure business, nothing personal—but he couldn’t help it this time, what with the bonus and all. It took a few seconds before the reply came.

  have fun.

  The man with the eagle tattoo smiled as he returned the envelope and the bag to the briefcase and made his way back to the station concourse.

  7

  Tobias Iversen covered his younger brother’s ears so that he wouldn’t hear the row coming from downstairs. They tended to kick off at this time, when their mother came home from work and discovered that their stepfather had not done what he was supposed to do. Cook dinner for the boys. Tidy the house a bit. Find himself a job. Tobias did not want his brother to hear them, so he’d invented a game.

  I’ll cover your ears, and you tell me what you can see inside your head, yeah?

  “A red truck with flames on it.” Torben smiled, and Tobias nodded and smiled back at him. What else?

  “A knight fighting a dragon.” His brother grinned, and Tobias nodded again.

  The noise level below increased. Angry voices crept up between the walls and slipped under his skin. Tobias could not handle what would happen next—things being thrown at the walls, the screaming getting louder, perhaps worse—so he decided to take his brother outside. He whispered between his hand and his younger brother’s ear.

  “Why don’t we go outside and hunt some bison?”

  His brother smiled and nodded eagerly.

  Hunt bison. Run around the forest pretending to be Indians. He would love that. Not many other children lived out here, so Tobias and his brother usually played together even though Tobias was thirteen and Torben only seven. It was not a good idea to be inside most of the time. Outside was better.

  Tobias helped his brother put on his jacket and sneakers, and then he hummed, sang, and stomped hard on the back stairs as they made their way out. As usual, his brother gazed at him with admiration—his big brother always entertained him, making these loud, strange noises. Torben thought it was funny; he loved his big brother very much, loved joining him on all the exciting, strange adventures his brother came up with.

  Tobias went to the woodshed, found some string and a knife, and told Torben to run ahead without him. They had a secret place in the forest that was perfectly safe, where his brother was free to roam; farther in, there was a clearing between the spruces where the two of them had built a hut, a little home away from home.

  When they reached the hut, Torben was already settled on the old mattress, had found a comic book, and was absorbed by the pictures and all these exciting new letters and words that he finally, after a huge effort, both at school and with some help from his big brother, was beginning to grasp.

  Tobias took out the knife and chose a suitable willow branch, cut it off at the base, and stripped away the bark in the middle, the section that was going to form the handle of the bow. The grip improved when the bark was removed and the wood had had time to dry slightly. He bent the willow over his knees, tied the thin rope to each end, and presto, a new bow. He placed the bow on the ground and went off to find suitable material for arrows. They did not have to be willow; most types of wood would do, except for spruce, since the branches were too limp. He returned with straight, narrow branches and started stripping off the bark. Soon four new arrows were lying near the tree stump he was sitting on.

  “Tobias, what does it say here?”

  His brother came padding out from the hut with the comic in his hand.

  “Kryptonite,” Tobias told him.

  “Superman doesn’t like that,” his younger brother said.

  “You’re right,” Tobias replied, wiping a bit of snot from his brother’s nose with the sleeve of his sweater.

  “Do you think it’ll be a good one?”

  Tobias got up and put an arrow against the string, then pulled the bow string as far as he could and let the arrow fly in between the trees.

  “Awesome!” his brother cried out. “Would you make one for me, too, please?”

  “This one is for you,” Tobias said with a wink.

  His brother’s cheeks flushed, his gaze happy. The young boy tightened the bow as hard as he could and managed to get the arrow to go a few meters. He looked to Tobias, who nodded affirmatively, good shot, and then went to fetch the arrow.

  “Why don’t we shoot the Christian girls?” Torben said when he came back.

  “What do you mean?” Tobias said, somewhat startled.

  “The Christian girls who live in the forest? Why don’t we shoot them?”

  “We don’t shoot people,” Tobias said, taking his brother by the arm quite firmly. “And how come you know about the Christian girls?”

  “I heard it at school,” his brother said. “That Christian girls live in the forest now and that they eat people.”

  Tobias chuckled to himself. “It’s true there are new people living in the forest.” He smiled. “But they’re not dangerous, and they definitely don’t eat people.”

  “So why don’t they go to our school?” his wide-eyed brother demanded to know. “If they live here?”

  “I’m not sure,” Tobias replied. “I think they have their own school.”

  His brother’s face turned very serious. “I bet it’s really good. And that’s why they don’t want to go to ours.”

  “Probably,” Tobias agreed. “So where do you want to hunt bison today?” he asked, ruffling his brother’s hair. “Up by Rundvann?”

  “Probably,” said the younger boy, who wanted to be just like his brother. “I think so.”

  “Rundvann it is. Please, would you go get the first arrow I shot? That is, if you think you can find it?”

  His brother nodded. “I guess I can,” he said with a sly smile, and raced off into the trees.

  8

  Holger Munch was not feeling entirely comfortable as he sat in the small motorboat going from Hitra to an even smaller island just beyond it. Not that he was seasick, no, Holger Munch loved being at sea, but he had just spoken to Mikkelson on the phone. Mikkelson had sounded very strange, not his usual brusque self at all. He’d been almost humble, wishing Munch the best of luck, hoping that he would do his best. Said it was important that the police work together as a team now, lots of morale boosting, very uncharacteristic of Mikkelson, and Munch did not like it one bit. Something had quite clearly happened. Something Mikkelson did not want to tell Munch about.

  Munch pulled his jacket tighter against the wind and tried to light a cigarette as the boat chugged steadily toward the mouth of the fjord. He did not think that the young man with the disheveled hair steering the boat was a police officer, rather some sort of local volunteer, and the reason he hadn’t been able to take Munch to the island earlier was still unclear. He had met him on the quay, asked him if he knew where the island was, and the young man with the unruly hair had nodded and pointed. Only fifteen minutes by boat. It was Rigmor’s old place. She had lived there with her son, but then her son had moved to Australia, probably because of a woman, and Rigmor had had no choice but to move to Hitra. Her place had been sold, apparently to some girl from East Norway—no one knew much about her; he had seen her heading to town a couple of times, a pretty girl, about thirty, long black hair, always wore sunglasses. Was that where he was going? Was it important?

  The young man shouted the latter over the noise from the engine, but Holger Munch, who had not said a word since greeting him at the quay, stayed silent. He just let the lad talk while for the third time he shielded his lighter against the wind with his hand and tried to light the cigarette, again without success.

  As they approached the island, the faint nausea he had felt after talking to Mikkelson began to dissipate. He realized he would be seeing her soon. He had missed her. He had last s
een her a year ago. At the convalescent home. Or the madhouse, or whatever they called it these days. She had not been herself, and he had barely been able to make contact with her. He had tried reaching her a couple of times, by phone and email, but there had been no reply, and when he saw the pretty little island in front of him, he understood why. She did not want to be reached. She wanted to be alone.

  The motorboat docked at a small jetty, and Munch climbed ashore, not as nimbly as he would have done ten years ago, but his fitness level was nowhere near as poor as people’s comments tended to suggest.

  “Do you want me to wait, or will you give me a call when you want to go back?” said the young man with the messy hair, clearly hoping he would be asked to wait, join in the excitement; Munch had a hunch that not a lot happened out here.

  “I’ll call you,” Munch said tersely, and raised his hand to his forehead in a salute by way of good-bye.

  He turned and looked up toward the house. He waited while he listened to the sound of the engine disappear across the sea behind him. It was a pretty place. She had taste, Mia, no doubt about it. She had picked the perfect place to hide. Her own little island close to the mouth of the fjord. From the jetty a narrow path led up to an idyllic small white house. Munch was no expert, but it looked as if the place might have been built in the 1950s, perhaps originally as a summer cabin that had later been turned into a year-round accommodation. Mia Krüger. It would be good to see her again.

  He remembered the first time he met her. Shortly after the special investigation unit had been set up, he’d had a call from Magnar Yttre, an old colleague and now dean of the police academy. Although he had not spoken to Yttre for years, his old colleague did not waste one second on small talk. I think I’ve found one for you, he had announced, sounding almost as proud as a little kid showing his parents a drawing.

  “Hi, Magnar, it’s been a long time. What have you got?”

  “I’ve found one for you. You have to meet her.”

  Yttre had spoken so fast that Munch had missed some of the details, but the short version went as follows: During their second year, police academy students underwent a test developed by scientists from the psychology department at UCLA. The test, which had a technical name that Munch missed, consisted of showing the students a photograph of a murder victim along with several pictures from the crime scene. The students’ task was to free-associate based on the photographs, give their observations and responses to them; the test was presented as quite relaxed, almost a game, so that the students would not feel pressured or realize that they were participating in something significant.

  “I have lost count of the number of times we’ve run this test, but we’ve never seen a result like this. This girl is unique,” Yttre had declared, still brimming with enthusiasm.

  Holger Munch had met her at a café, a casual meeting outside police headquarters. Mia Krüger. In her early twenties, wearing a white sweater and tight black trousers, with dark hair, not very well cut, and the clearest blue eyes he had ever seen. He’d taken to her immediately. It was something about the way she moved and talked. How her eyes reacted to his questions. As if she knew that he was testing her, but she replied politely all the same, with a twinkle in her eye as if to say, What do you think I am? Dumb or something?

  A few weeks later, he picked her up from the police academy with Yttre’s blessing, as Yttre had been happy to sort out all the paperwork. There was no need for her to stay in school any longer. This girl was already fully qualified.

  Munch smiled to himself and started walking toward the house. The front door was ajar, but there were no signs of her anywhere.

  “Hello? Mia?”

  He knocked on the door and took a couple of cautious steps inside the hallway. It suddenly struck him that even though they had worked together for many years and were close friends, he had never been to her home. He began to feel like an intruder and lingered in the hall before he took a few more reluctant steps inside. He knocked on another half-open door and entered the living room. The room was sparsely furnished—a table, an old sofa, some spindle-back chairs, a fireplace in one corner. The overall effect was rather odd, as if it were not a home, merely a place to stay, no photographs, no personal effects anywhere.

  Perhaps he’d been mistaken? What if she was not here? Perhaps she had just stayed here for a brief period before moving on, hiding somewhere else?

  “Hello? Mia?”

  Munch continued into the kitchen and heaved a sigh of relief. On the kitchen counter below one of the windows, there was a coffee machine, one of those big, complicated ones you saw in coffee bars, rather than the kind in people’s homes. He smiled to himself. Now he was sure that he was in the right place. Mia Krüger had few vices, but the one thing she could not do without was good coffee. He’d lost count of the number of times she’d drunk his coffee at work and scrunched up her nose. How do you drink this dishwater? Doesn’t it make you sick?

  Munch walked over to the counter and touched the shiny machine. It was cold. It had not been used for a while. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. She could still be nearby. But something felt very wrong. He could not quite put his finger on it, but it was there. He couldn’t resist the temptation and started opening cupboards and drawers.

  “Hello? Mia? Where are you?”

  9

  Mia Krüger awoke with a jolt and sat upright in her bed.

  Someone was in her house.

  She had no idea how she’d ended up upstairs, she did not remember getting undressed or going to bed, but that was irrelevant right now. There was someone in the house. She could hear noises coming from the kitchen. Bottles being taken out of a cupboard and put on the floor. She slipped out of bed, pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt, stuck her hand inside her underwear drawer, and pulled out her gun, a small Glock 17. Mia Krüger did not like guns, but she was not an idiot either. She tiptoed barefoot from the bedroom, opened the window in the passage, and crept onto the small roof. Shaking the remnants of sleep from her body, Mia tucked the gun into her waistband, leaped off the roof, and landed as soft as a cat in the grass.

  Who the hell could it be? Out here? In her house? About as far from civilization as it was possible to get? She edged around the corner and glanced quickly through the living-room window. No one there. She continued steadily toward the back door, which also had a small window—no one inside. Carefully she pushed open the door and waited in the doorway for a few seconds before she tiptoed into the hall. She positioned herself by the entrance to the living room with her back against the wall and took a deep breath before she went in, still with her pistol held out in front of her.

  “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

  Holger Munch was sitting on the sofa with his feet on the table, smiling at her.

  “You idiot.” Mia sighed. “I could have shot you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Munch grinned and got up. “I’m not much of a target.”

  He patted his stomach and laughed briefly. Mia placed the gun on the windowsill and went over to give her old colleague a hug. It was not until then that she realized that she was cold, that she was not wearing any shoes and wasn’t properly dressed, and that the pills from last night had yet to leave her system. Her instinct had taken over. Provided her with strength she did not have. She collapsed on the sofa and wrapped herself in a throw.

  “Are you okay?”

  Mia nodded.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you. Did I scare you?”

  “A little,” Mia conceded.

  “Sorry,” Munch apologized. “I’ve made some tea, do you want some? I would have made coffee, but I have no idea how to work that spaceship of yours.”

  Mia smiled. She had not seen her colleague for a long time, but their banter was the same. “Tea would be good.”

  “Two seconds.” Munch returned her smile and disappear
ed into the kitchen.

  Mia glanced sideways at the thick file lying on the table. She did not have a telephone, Internet, or access to newspapers, but it wasn’t difficult to work out that something had happened in the outside world. Something important. So important that Holger Munch had gotten onto a plane, into a car, and then onto a boat to talk to her.

  “Do we go straight to business, or do you want to do small talk first?” Munch set the teacup on the table in front of her.

  “No more cases for me, Holger.” Mia shook her head and sipped her tea.

  “No, I know, I know.” Munch heaved a sigh as he slumped down on one of the spindle-back chairs. “That’s why you’re hiding out here, I get it. Not even a cell phone? You’re difficult to track down.”

  “That’s kind of the point,” Mia said drily.

  “I get it, I get it.” Munch heaved another sigh. “Do you want me to leave right now?”

  “No, you can stay for a while.”

  Suddenly Mia felt uncertain. Of two minds. Up until now she had felt resolved and determined. She rummaged around her pocket but could find no more pills. Not that she wanted some, not with Holger Munch there, but a drink would have been welcome.

  “So what do you think?” Munch asked, and tilted his head a little.

  “What do I think about what?”

  “Are you going to take a peek at it?” He nodded toward the file on the table between them.

  “I think I’ll pass,” Mia said, tightening the throw around her.

  “Okay,” Munch said, and took out his phone. He entered the number of the young man with the messy hair. “Munch speaking, can you pick me up, please? I’m done out here.”