‘Yes? Mia speaking.’
‘Sorry, did I wake you?’
It was Gabriel Mørk. The new guy. The cute one who blushed. The hacker.
‘No,’ Mia said, sitting up in her bed. ‘What time is it?’
‘Nine.’
‘Good God, you’ve started work early.’
Mia was awake now. Her dream had gone. The hotel room was suddenly present.
‘I never went home.’
‘So are you living at the office now?’
Gabriel laughed a little.
‘Eh, no, or, that is to say, well, a bit. Much to learn. I feel a certain responsibility.’
‘I know,’ Mia said.
She got out of bed and opened the blinds.
A new spring day in the centre of Oslo. Children in Spikersuppa Park. Pensioners walking up and down Karl-Johan. The king in his castle. Politicians in Parliament. Everyone going about their everyday business, and it was her responsibility to make sure they could carry on doing that. She understood only too well what drove the young, newly hired hacker.
‘You’ve got to sleep sometimes.’
‘It’s all good,’ Gabriel continued. ‘I’m used to working at night. I thought you might want to know what I found.’
‘Of course,’ Mia said, and closed the blinds again.
She was not quite ready for daylight. She desperately wanted to go back to sleep. What was it Roger Bakken had been shouting at her?
‘Now, I know I’m not a proper police officer,’ Gabriel said, sounding apologetic, ‘so I’m not sure if this is important or not.’
‘You’re doing fine.’ Mia yawned. ‘Just tell me.’
‘OK,’ Gabriel went on. ‘You know that the laptop had two users?’
‘Roger and Randi.’
‘Yes, Roger and Randi. And this is where it gets weird.’
‘Why?’
‘Let’s start with Roger. No surprises there. Didn’t use his laptop all that much, he wasn’t a computer freak.’
‘Why not?’
‘He only used his laptop for the usual guy stuff.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Emails. Cars and motorbikes. What we would expect, really.’
‘Who did he email? Anyone interesting?’
‘Not really. There were hardly any private emails, I mean, from people he knew. He had ordered some biker magazines. Bills, e-invoices. Junk mail. A fairly sad life, judging by his email account.’
‘Not everyone lives their life on the Net, Gabriel,’ Mia said.
‘No, you’re right, but even so. The absence of personal stuff is odd, but that’s not the interesting bit.’
‘Could you hang on two seconds?’
‘OK.’
Mia put the mobile on hold and made her way to the hotel telephone on the bedside table. She rang reception and ordered breakfast to be sent to her room. She had tried going to the dining room for breakfast yesterday, and that had been a mistake. Too many people.
‘I’m back.’
‘OK,’ Gabriel said. ‘I’ll check out this Roger user a bit more, but I wanted to tell you what I found on the other one.’
‘Randi?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who is she?’
‘That’s the weird bit.’
‘What?’
Gabriel fell silent for a little while.
‘I think you need to see it for yourself, but I’m quite sure that it’s the same person.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Roger and Randi. They’re one and the same.’
‘Roger Bakken was two people?’
‘Yes, or no. Or, yes. He liked to be a woman.’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘No, it’s the truth.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Under the Roger username, he’s a man. He has photographs of motorbikes and cars. He goes fishing and drinks alcohol. As Randi, he’s completely different. He’s a woman. Bookmarks on the browser are blogs about crocheting and interior design. He has photographs of himself wearing women’s clothing. It looks like he lived a double life.’
‘And you’re quite sure about this?’
She heard Gabriel sigh at the other end.
‘I know I’m not a police officer, but I am capable of spotting a man dressed like a woman.’
‘Sorry,’ Mia said. ‘It just sounds so weird.’
‘I agree,’ Gabriel said. ‘But it is him. One hundred per cent. You can see for yourself when you get here.’
‘I’ll be there shortly,’ Mia said. ‘What about his mobile?’
‘That’s also a bit odd.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Practically all the messages have been deleted, and he had no stored numbers. I don’t know what this guy was up to, but he has done everything he could to erase every trace of himself.’
‘Apart from the photographs of himself dressed as a woman.’
‘Yes, except for that but, like I said, they were on the laptop.’
‘You said that practically all the text messages had been deleted. Are you telling me that you do have some?’
‘Yes, a few cryptic ones.’
‘Let me hear them.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now.’
Mia couldn’t help smiling.
‘OK.’
Gabriel cleared his throat and read aloud what he had found.
‘There are three text messages. All are dated 20 March.’
‘The day he died.’
‘Was it?’
‘Yes, tell me what they say.’
There was a knock on the hotel door. Mia put on one of the hotel’s dressing gowns and brought in her breakfast while Gabriel opened the text messages.
‘OK, the first one is short.’
‘Who sent it?’
‘The sender is anonymous.’
‘How is that possible? Can you really hide your number when you’re texting?’
‘Yes, that’s easy,’ Gabriel replied.
‘I know I probably sound like your granny right now, but how do you do that?’ Mia asked him, and took a sip of her coffee.
It was bitter. She spat it out. She muttered curses under her breath. How could people not learn to make proper coffee? The scrambled eggs and the bacon on the plate did not look very appetizing either.
‘You send it via the Net, using TxtEmNow.com, or some similar site. There are lots of them where you don’t have to register. You just type in the number and the message and off it goes, usually with advertising. That’s how they finance it.’
‘And what did the message say?’
‘There are three.’
‘Let me have them.’
‘“It is unwise to fly too near the sun.”’
‘Again, please.’
Mia was unable to eat anything. She carried the tray to the windowsill.
‘“It is unwise to fly too near the sun.” That’s the first message.’
‘What did he reply?’
‘He didn’t. You can’t reply to a text message when there’s no sender.’