He stuck the arrow into the ground next to the tree stump and got up. If they were to have time to hunt bison up near Rundvann, they would have to get a move on. He liked having his brother in bed by nine o’clock, at least on school days. Both for his brother’s benefit and for his own, they shared the attic room, and he enjoyed the few hours he had to himself by the reading lamp once his brother had fallen asleep.
‘Torben?’ he called out.
Tobias started walking through the forest in the direction in which the arrow and his brother had disappeared. The wind had increased slightly and the leaves rustled around him. He wasn’t scared, he had been out here alone many times, and in stronger winds and worse weather; he loved how nature took over and shook everything around him, but his brother scared easily.
‘Torben? Where are you?’
Once more, he felt bad about the things he had said about the Christian girls. He had lied, invented stories in the boys’ changing room. He decided to go on an expedition soon, like the boys in Lord of the Flies who had no adults around. Sneak out, pack some provisions and his torch, make a trip up to Litjønna. He knew the way. See for himself if it was true what they said about the new farm and the fence and everything else. ‘Exciting and educational’: now he remembered the phrase his former Norwegian teacher had been so fond of; everything they were going to do was always exciting and educational, so they had to sit still and listen, but then it never was, it was never exciting and it couldn’t have been all that educational either, because he couldn’t recall anything from those lessons. Then he remembered something his grandfather had said once when they were out for a drive in the old red Volvo: that not everyone is suited to have children, that some people should never have become parents. It had struck a chord with him: perhaps it was the same with teachers? That some were not suited to it and that explained their sad faces every time they entered the classroom.
His train of thought was interrupted by a rustling in the bushes in front of him. Suddenly, his brother appeared out of nowhere with a strange look on his face and a large wet stain on his trousers.
‘Torben? What’s wrong?’
His brother looked at him with empty eyes.
‘There’s an angel hanging all alone in the forest.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘There’s an angel hanging all alone in the forest.’
Tobias put his arms around his brother and could feel how the little boy continued to tremble.
‘Are you making this up, Torben?’
‘No. She’s in there.’
‘Would you show me, please?’
His brother looked up at him.
‘She doesn’t have any wings, but she’s definitely an angel.’
‘Show me,’ Tobias said gravely, and nudged his brother in front of him through the spruce.
Chapter 13
Mia Krüger sat on the rock watching the sunset over Hitra for the last time.
The seventeenth of April. One day to go. Tomorrow, she would rejoin Sigrid.
She felt tired. Not tired in the sense that she needed sleep, but tired of everything. Of life. Of humanity. Of everything that had happened. She had found a kind of peace before Holger had shown her the photographs in the folder but, once he had left, it had crept over her again. This vile feeling.
Evil.
She took a swig from the bottle she had brought with her and pulled the knitted beanie further over her ears. It had grown colder now; spring had not come early, after all. It had only tricked everyone into thinking it was coming. Mia was pleased that she had the bottle to warm her up. This was not how she had imagined her last day. She had planned to cram as much as she could into her last twenty-four hours of life. The birds, the trees, the sea, the light. Have a day off from self-medicating so that she could feel things, be aware of herself, one last time. It had not worked out that way. After Holger had left her, her desire for sensory deprivation had only increased. She had drunk more. Taken more pills. Woken up without realizing that she had been asleep. Fallen asleep without realizing she had been awake. She had promised herself not to care too much about the contents of the file. Stupid, obviously – when had she ever been able to distance herself from anything in these cases? Her job. Well, it might be a job for other people, but not for Mia Krüger. Each case affected her far too deeply. They reached right inside her soul, as if it were her own story, as if she were the victim. Kidnapped, raped, beaten with iron bars, burned with cigarettes, killed by a drug overdose, only six years old, hanged from a tree with a skipping rope.
Why wasn’t Pauline Olsen’s name on the schoolbooks?
When everything else had been planned down to the last detail?
Sod it.
She had tried blanking out the image of the little girl hanging from the tree, but she could not get it out of her head. Everything seemed so staged. So theatrical. Almost like a game. A kind of message. But who for? For whoever found her? The police? She had trawled through her memories to discover if the name Toni had cropped up in any case she had been involved with, but had found nothing. This was exactly the kind of thing Mia used to be so brilliant at, but she no longer seemed to be able to function. And yet there was something here, something she could not quite put her finger on, and it irritated her. Mia watched the sun sink into the sea and tried to concentrate. A message? For the police? An old case? A cold case? There were only a few unsolved cases in her career history, thank God. Even so, one or two still troubled her. A rich, elderly lady had been found dead in her flat on Bogstadveien, but they had been unable to prove that it was murder, even though Mia, personally, was fairly sure that one of the daughters was responsible for the old lady’s death. She could not remember the name Toni in connection with that investigation. They had helped Ringerike Police in a missing person’s inquiry some years back. A baby had disappeared from the maternity ward, a Swedish man had claimed responsibility, killed himself, but the baby had never been found. The case had been shelved, even though Mia had fought to keep it active. No Toni in that investigation either, not so far as she could remember. Pauline. Six years. Hang on – wasn’t it six years since that baby disappeared? Mia drained the bottle and let her eyes rest on the horizon while she tried to guide her gaze inwards. Backwards. Six years back. There was something here. She could almost taste it. But it refused to rise to the surface.
Damn.
Mia rummaged around in her trouser pockets for more pills, but found none. She had forgotten to bring more. Her medication was laid out on the dining table now. Everything she had left. Plenty of it. Ready for use. She had imagined waiting until dawn, until the light came. Better to travel in the light, had been her thinking; if I travel in darkness, perhaps I’ll end up in darkness – but right now she didn’t care. All she had to do was wait until the clock passed midnight. When the seventeenth of April became the eighteenth.
Come to me, Mia, come.
It was not the ending she had imagined. She got up and hurled the empty bottle angrily into the sea. She regretted it immediately: she should not litter; this rule had stayed with her since her childhood. The beautiful garden. Her parents. Her grandmother. Instead, she should have written a message and put it in the bottle. Done something beautiful in her last few hours on earth. Helped someone in need. Solved a case. She wanted to go back to the house, but she could not get her legs to move. She stayed where she was, hugging herself, freezing, on the rocks.