Toni J. W. Smith. Toni J. W. Smith. Toni J. W. Smith. Toni J. W. Smith. Pauline. No, not Pauline. Toni J. W. Smith.
Oh, hell.
Mia Krüger suddenly woke up. As did her head, her legs, her arms, her blood, her breathing, her senses.
Toni J. W. Smith.
Of course. Of course. Of course. Oh, dear Lord, why had she not seen this earlier? It was so obvious. As clear as day. Mia ran towards the house – she tripped in the darkness, but got back on her feet – stormed into the living room without closing the door behind her. She continued into the kitchen. She knelt down by the cupboard below the utility sink and started going through the bin. This was where she had tossed it, wasn’t it? The mobile he had left for her.
In case you change your mind.
She found the mobile in the bin and rummaged around for the scrap of paper which had accompanied it. A yellow Post-it note with a pin code and Holger’s number. She went back to the living room, could hardly wait now, turned on the mobile. Entered the code on the small screen with trembling fingers. Of course. Of course. No wonder it didn’t add up. Everything had to add up. And it did. Toni J. W. Smith. Of course. She was an idiot.
Mia rang Holger’s number and waited impatiently for him to pick up. The mobile went to voicemail, but she rang the number again. And again. And again, until she finally heard Holger’s sleepy voice on the other end.
‘Mia?’ Holger yawned.
‘I got it,’ Mia said breathlessly.
‘What have you got? What time is it?’
‘Who cares what time it is? I’ve got it.’
‘What?’
‘Toni J. W. Smith.’
‘Seriously? What is it?’
‘I think that J. W. is short for Joachim Wicklund. The Swedish suspect in the Hønefoss case. Do you remember him?’
‘Of course I do,’ Munch mumbled.
‘As for Toni Smith,’ Mia continued. ‘I think it’s an anagram: It’s not him. Joachim Wicklund didn’t do it. It’s the same perpetrator, Holger. As in the Hønefoss case.’
Munch was silent for a long time. Mia could practically hear the cogs turn in his brain. It was almost too far out to be true, but even so. It had to be an anagram.
‘Don’t you think?’ Mia said.
‘But that’s insane,’ Munch said at length. ‘Worst thing is, I think you might be right. So, are you coming?’
‘Yes,’ Mia replied. ‘But this case only. Then I quit. I have other things to do.’
‘Of course. It’s up to you,’ Munch said.
‘Are we back in Mariboesgate?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll catch the plane tomorrow.’
‘Great. See you there.’
‘You will.’
‘Drive carefully, will you?’
‘I’m always careful, Holger.’
‘You’re never careful, Mia.’
‘Screw you, Holger.’
‘I love you, too, Mia. Good to have you back. See you tomorrow.’
Mia ended the call and stood for a moment, smiling cautiously to herself. Now feeling calm, she walked into the living room and looked at all the pills she had lined up on the dining table.
Come to me, Mia, come.
In her mind she apologized to her twin sister. Sigrid would have to wait a little longer. Mia Krüger had a job to do first.
II
Chapter 14
Gabriel Mørk felt vaguely twitchy as he waited to be met in Mariboesgate. As far as he knew, Oslo Police had its headquarters in Grønland, so that was where he had expected to go, but it turned out not to be the case. He had received a short text message. Go to Mariboesgate. Will pick you up at 11 a.m. No sender. Nothing. Strange, really. Come to think it, his whole week had been strange – entertaining up to a point, sure – but Gabriel Mørk still didn’t know just what exactly he had signed up for.
A job. He had never had one of those before. Reporting to a boss. Working as part of a team. Joining the real world. Getting up in the morning. Becoming a responsible member of society. Not something this twenty-four-year-old was used to.
Gabriel Mørk liked staying up at night when the rest of the world was asleep. Much easier to think then. With the dark night outside and just the light from the screens glowing in his bedsit. Calling it a bedsit was a slight embellishment. Gabriel Mørk was always reluctant to admit that he was still living at home. Yes, he had his own entrance and his own bathroom, but his mother lived in the same house. It was not very rock ’n’ roll and definitely not something he would bring up on the rare occasions he met new people or bumped into old schoolfriends. Not that it was a problem. He knew several hackers who did the same. Who still lived at home. But even so.
However, his situation was about to change. Completely out of the blue. It was all happening a little too quickly. Or was this what he had been waiting for his whole life? He had met her online only seven months ago, and already she was pregnant. They were looking for a place together and now he was standing in the street having got himself a job working for the police. Gabriel Mørk had never felt that he was very good at anything, except computers – then, few were better than him – but not in other aspects of life. At school he had kept mostly to himself. Blushed whenever a girl had come over to invite him to join in something. During sixth form, he had spent his evenings at home while his classmates had drunk themselves senseless at Tryvann. He had signed up for some computer courses after sixth form, but never attended any lectures. What would be the point of that? He already knew all there was to know.
He glanced around nervously, but there was no sign of anyone coming to meet him. Perhaps it had all been a joke? Working for the police? At first he had thought some of his cyber friends were messing with him. He knew a couple of people who would think a prank like this was hilarious. Wind people up. Hack their medical records. Hack solicitors’ offices. Send messages to strangers telling them they were pregnant. False paternity claims. Wreak as much havoc as possible. Gabriel Mørk was not that kind of hacker, but he knew many who were. It was possible that someone was setting him up, but he didn’t think so. The guy who had called him had seemed very credible. They had got his name from GCHQ in Great Britain. MI6. The intelligence service. Like most of his acquaintances, Gabriel Mørk had had a go at Canyoucrackit?, a challenge which had been posted on the Internet the previous autumn. To ordinary people, it was a seemingly unbreakable code. One hundred and sixty pairs of numbers and letters with a clock counting down to zero to increase the tension. He had not been the first to solve the code, but neither had he been very far behind. The first had been a Russian, a black hacker, who had cracked the code only a few hours after it had been uploaded to the Net. Gabriel Mørk knew that the Russian had not cracked the code itself, he had merely reversed engineered it by hacking the website, canyoucrackit.co.uk, and found the HTML file, which was supposed to contain the solution. Kind of fun, but not really the point of the challenge.
Gabriel Mørk had spotted straightaway that it was machine code, X86, and that it implemented the RC4 algorithm. It had not been a piece of cake – the creators of the code had put in place numerous obstacles, such as hiding a block of data inside a PNG file, so it was not enough merely to decrypt the numbers, but despite that it had taken him only a couple of nights. A fun challenge. The solution to the code itself was not quite as entertaining. The whole thing had turned out to be a PR stunt on behalf of GCHQ, a section of the British intelligence service, a test, a job application. If you can break this code you are smart enough to work for us.