Wow, Holger, new jumper? Wow, Holger new jacket? Wow, Holger, have you trimmed your beard?
He unlocked the Volvo, placed his mobile in the cradle and turned it on. He put on the seatbelt and was heading towards the centre of Trondheim when his messages started coming through. He heaved a sigh. One hour with his phone turned off and now it was kicking off again. No respite from the world. It was not entirely fair to say that it was the flight alone which had put him in a bad mood. There had been a lot happening recently, both at work and at home. Holger swiped his finger across the smartphone’s screen; it was a model they had told him to buy, it was all about high-tech these days, the twenty-first-century police force, even in Hønefoss, where he had worked for the last eighteen months for Ringerike Police. This was where he had started his career, and now he had come back. Because of the Tryvann incident.
Seven calls from Oslo Police Headquarters at Grønland. Two from his ex-wife. One from his daughter. Two from the care home. Plus countless text messages.
Holger Munch decided to ignore the world for a little longer and turned on the radio. He found NRK Klassisk, opened the window and lit a cigarette. Cigarettes were his only vice – apart from food, obviously – but they were in a different league in terms of attraction. Holger Munch had no intention of ever quitting smoking, no matter how many laws the politicians came up with and how many SMOKING PROHIBITED signs they put up all over Norway, including on the dashboard of his rental car.
He could not think without a cigarette, and there was nothing Holger Munch loved more than thinking. Using his brain. Never mind about the body, as long as his brain worked. They were playing Handel’s ‘Messiah’ on the radio, not Munch’s favourite, but he was OK with it. He was more of a Bach man himself; he liked the mathematics of the music, not all those emotional composers: Wagner’s bellicose Aryan tempo, Ravel’s impressionistic, emotional landscape. Munch listened to classical music precisely to escape these human feelings. If people were mathematical equations, life would be much simpler. He quickly touched his wedding ring and thought about Marianne, his ex-wife. It had been ten years now, and still he could not make himself take it off. She had rung him. Perhaps she was…
No. It would be about the wedding, obviously. She wanted to talk about the wedding. They had a daughter together, Miriam, who was getting married shortly. There were practicalities to discuss. That was all. Holger Munch flicked the cigarette out of the window and lit another one.
I don’t drink coffee, I don’t touch alcohol. Surely I’m allowed a sodding cigarette.
Holger Munch had been drunk only once, at the age of fourteen, on his father’s cherry brandy at their holiday cottage in Larvik, and he had never touched a drop of alcohol since.
The desire was just not there. He didn’t fancy it. It would never cross his mind to do anything which might impair his brain cells. Not in a million years. Now, smoking, on the other hand, and the occasional burger, that was something else again.
He pulled over at a Shell petrol station by Stav Gjestegård and ordered a bacon-burger meal deal, which he ate sitting on a bench overlooking Trondheim Fjord. If his colleagues had been asked to describe Holger Munch in three words, two of them were likely to be ‘nerd’. ‘Clever’ would possibly be the third, or ‘too clever for his own good’. But a nerd, definitely. A fat, amiable nerd who never touched alcohol, loved mathematics, classical music, crossword puzzles and chess. A little dull, perhaps, but an extremely talented investigator. And a fair boss. So what if he never joined his colleagues for a beer after work, or that he had not been on a date since his wife left him for a teacher from Hurum who had eight weeks’ annual holiday and never had to get up in the middle of the night without telling her where he was going. There was no one whose clear-up rate was as high as Holger Munch’s, everyone knew that. Everyone liked Holger Munch. And, even so, he had ended up back in Hønefoss.
I’m not demoting you, I’m reassigning you. The way I see it, you should count yourself lucky that you still have a job.
He had almost quit on the spot that day outside Mikkelson’s office in Grønland, but he had bit his tongue. What else would he do? Work as a security guard?
Holger Munch got back in the car and followed the E6 towards Trondheim. He lit a fresh cigarette and followed the ring road around the city, heading south. The rental car was equipped with a satnav, but he did not turn it on. He knew where he was going.
Mia Krüger.
He thought warmly about his former colleague just as his mobile rang again.
‘Munch speaking.’
‘Where the hell are you?’
It was an agitated Mikkelson, on the verge of a heart attack, as usual; how that man had survived ten years in the boss’s chair down at Grønland was a mystery to most people.
‘I’m in the car. Where the hell are you?’ Munch snapped back.
‘In the car where? Haven’t you got there yet?’
‘No, I haven’t got there yet. I’ve only just landed, I thought you knew that. What do you want?’
‘I just wanted to check that you’re sticking with the plan.’
‘I have the file here, and I intend to deliver it in person, if that’s what you mean.’ Munch sighed. ‘Was it really necessary to send me all the way up here just for this? How about a courier? Or we could have used the local police?’
‘You know exactly why you’re there,’ Mikkelson replied. ‘And this time I want you to do as you’ve been told.’
‘One,’ Munch said as he flicked the cigarette butt out of the window, ‘I owe you nothing. Two, I owe you nothing. Three, it’s your own fault you’re no longer using my brain for its intended purpose, so I suggest you shut up. Do you want to know the cases I’m working on these days? Do you, Mikkelson? Want to know what I’m working on?’
A brief silence followed at the other end. Munch chuckled contentedly to himself.
Mikkelson hated nothing more than having to ask for a favour. Munch knew that Mikkelson was fuming now, and he savoured the fact that his former boss was having to control himself rather than speak his mind.
‘Just do it.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Munch grinned and saluted in the car.
‘Drop the irony, Munch, and call me when you’ve got something.’
‘Will do. Oh, by the way, there was one thing Ö’
‘What?’ Mikkelson grunted.
‘If she’s in, then so am I. No more Hønefoss for me. And I want our old offices in Mariboesgate. We work away from Police Headquarters. And I want the same team as before.’
There was total silence before the reply came.
‘That’s completely out of the question. It’s never going to happen, Munch. It’s…’
Munch smiled and pressed the red button to end the call before Mikkelson had time to say anything else. He lit another cigarette, turned the radio on again and took the road leading to Orkanger.
Chapter 4
Mia Krüger had been dozing on the sofa under a blanket near the fireplace. She had been dreaming about Sigrid and woken up feeling as if her twin sister were still there. With her. Alive. That they were together again, like they always used to be. Sigrid and Mia. Mia and Sigrid. Two peas in a pod, born two minutes apart, one blonde, the other dark; so different and yet so alike.
All Mia wanted to do was return to her dream, join Sigrid, but she made herself get up and go to the kitchen. Eat some breakfast. To keep the alcohol down. If she carried on like this, she would die prematurely, and that was completely out of the question.