‘Delta 2, this is 9, come in.’
‘9, this is Delta 2, over.’
‘Position, over?’
‘This is Delta 2. We have two men behind the house, east. Three in front of the entrance, north-west. In position fifteen zero metres, over.’
‘Delta 2, this is 9. Await further instructions. Over and out.’
‘Strange that there’s not a single light, isn’t it?’ Kim Kolsø said as Munch handed him the night-vision binoculars.
‘Perhaps she’s not there?’ Curry wondered out loud.
‘Or they’re in the basement,’ Munch said.
He took the binoculars back from Kim and aimed them at the small house. There were three units attending. Two from the armed response unit, Delta, who had turned up with a group of marksmen and a SWAT team, in addition to Munch, Kim and Curry. Munch returned the binoculars to Kim and almost had to smile as he remembered how Ludvig and Gabriel had both insisted on coming with them. Ludvig was one thing – after all, he had been a police officer for a long time – but Gabriel? The boy had probably only ever let off fireworks. But he had guts. A real coup for the team, definitely. Munch had told them to man the office. He had enough officers.
‘Are we sure that she also has Mia?’ Kim said.
‘We don’t know, but at the same time we do, don’t we?’ Curry said.
‘Her car was found outside the care home,’ Munch said. ‘And the last message from her mobile was sent from somewhere on Drammensveien.’
‘Thrown out of a window, probably,’ Curry snarled.
‘Did you discover anything about the boy – Iversen?’ Munch said.
Kim had worked on his own case and come back just in time to join the team heading to the house.
‘I spoke to his teacher, Emilie Isaksen,’ Kim replied. ‘Very resourceful woman with a great social conscience. Wish there were more like her. The boy is gone. The parents are gone. She had just fetched the younger brother from the house; he had been without food for a week. I told her not to do anything on her own, but I doubt that she’ll listen. She’s probably on her way up to the forest to look for Tobias as we speak.’
‘Talk to Ludvig,’ Munch said. ‘Get Hønefoss Police to dispatch a unit.’
‘Already done.’ Kim nodded.
Munch nodded affirmatively in response. If you could trust anyone, it would be Kim Kolsø. Curry, however, he had to keep an eye on. Kim say motionless in the passenger seat, while Curry, in the back, could barely sit still.
‘So what do we do?’ Curry said, leaning forward between them again.
‘We wait,’ Munch said.
‘What are we waiting for? That crazy woman has Mia inside – who knows what she’s doing to her? Why don’t we just kick the door in and take the bitch out?’
‘Curry,’ Kim said, to calm him down.
‘I know what’s at stake,’ Munch said in a steady voice. ‘My granddaughter is in there.’
He gave Curry a look which could not be misinterpreted. Curry nodded, somewhat apologetically, and sat back down in his seat.
Marion was in there.
Munch pulled himself together. He couldn’t assume that mantle now. The mantle of grandfather. Mikkelson had tried to insist on Munch staying at home, letting others do the job, but not even a bulldozer could not have held Munch back. He raised the binoculars to his eyes again and looked towards the dark house.
‘How long do we wait?’ Curry said impatiently from the back.
‘Curry,’ Kim said again.
‘No, he’s right,’ Munch said gruffly. ‘There is nothing to wait for.’
He pressed the walkie-talkie again.
‘Delta 2, this is 9. Come in.’
‘9, this is Delta 2, over.’
‘Delta 2, this is 9. Stand by for entry.’
‘Delta 2, received. Over and out.’
Munch checked that the safety catch had been released on the Glock before nodding to the other two.
‘Are we ready?’
Kim nodded.
‘Oh, yes,’ Curry said.
Munch carefully opened the door and got out of the Audi as quietly as he could.
Chapter 83
Marion Munch awoke with that strange taste in her mouth again. She had had such a lovely dream. That she was at home, that her parents were there, and that everything was back to normal. She opened her eyes only to discover that she was still trapped in the small, white, chilly room. Still wearing the same stupid, cumbersome dress. She curled up under the thin duvet and started to cry. She didn’t know how long she had been there now, it was difficult to tell because the light never went off. She had looked for the switch, but there was no switch to be found, just cold walls and no windows or doors. Marion had cried so much that her eyes had almost run out of tears. She had banged on the walls, screamed and shouted, but no one had come. At first, she couldn’t understand why. They always came when she cried. Her parents, they would always come. Like the time she had had a temperature and dreamt that Pooh Bear had turned into a giant monster that was trying to eat her. At that time, both her parents had come immediately. But no one was coming now. Not to this room. No one took care of her. She was all alone.
Marion Munch stuck her thumb in her mouth and curled into a tiny ball on the bed. She had stopped sucking her thumb some time ago, but now she had started again. She pressed her tongue hard against her thumb; it felt safe and good. Licked her thumb. The nail felt rough. She took her thumb out of her mouth and stared at it in surprise. Someone had scratched something on to her fingernail. There was a dent there, almost like a letter. Like Vivian’s initial at nursery, V. She had a V on her thumb. Marion stuck her thumb into her mouth again and traced the sharp edges in the nail letter with her tongue.
At the start, she had drawn pictures. Or tried to draw pictures – it hadn’t been easy. There was no one she could show her drawings to; there was just her. She had drawn pictures of her parents and her grandfather. Then she had drawn a superhero. The superhero was a woman she could talk to and who would look after her, and since then being here had felt a little easier. There seemed to be no days in the white room. At home, it would be morning or day or night, it was easy to know when things happened, but here it was impossible. It was light all the time and there were no noises anywhere, except when her meals arrived from the hatch in the wall. The one with the noisy, wind-up monkey inside. The food was strange and not terribly good, but she had eaten it all up because she was incredibly hungry. Sometimes there would be a bottle of squash, but mostly it was just water. Eating and drinking was a mistake, because then she would need the loo. And there was no loo in the room, just a waste basket, and it really stank, it really did all the time. Marion had made a lid from paper from her sketchpad, and that had reduced the stench a little. But, even so, she dreaded every time she had to remove the lid and squat down, because it was getting quite full and it was disgusting.
Even though it was light all the time, she didn’t find it difficult to sleep. Weird, really. The same thing would happen every time: After she had eaten, she would fall asleep. Even though she hadn’t felt tired at all. It was almost as if the food made her sleepy. As if the food was magic. She remembered Alice in Wonderland, who had felt strange after eating something – first she had turned big, then she had grown small – so magic food probably existed. Was it possible for food to be magic even though it tasted bad? Marion ran her tongue across the dent in her nail, just as she heard the wall started to hum again. Brr, vrr, the magic food was coming, it was travelling down to her through the wall. She got up and went over to the hatch. Stood there waiting for the food to land. She recognized the sounds now. Brr, vrr, brr, vrr and a clonk. Then she could open the hatch to see what she had got. It was mostly mashed potatoes and carrots and that stuff she didn’t like. Cauliflower. No, broccoli. Never pizza or sausages or tomato soup, never her favourite things. Marion waited for the clonk, still with her thumb in her mouth. Come to think of it, she never heard the service lift go back up again. It only ever came down. She would take out the food, eat it, and then the lift would come back down again. Because she had been asleep, was that it? It probably was. The magic food made her sleep, and then the lift would go up through the wall again while she was asleep; that had to be how it was.