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On 28 August 2006, a girl was born at the maternity unit of Ringerike Hospital in Hønefoss. The baby’s mother, a twenty-five-year-old nursery-school teacher called Katarina Olsen, was a haemophiliac and died during the birth. The midwife and some of the nurses who had been present later described the little girl as exceptionally beautiful. She was quiet and remarkably alert, with a gaze that caused everyone who worked in the ward to develop a very special bond with her. On her admission to the hospital, Katarina Olsen had registered the father as unknown. In the days that followed, the management of Ringerike Hospital, working in collaboration with Ringerike Social Services, tried to track down the child’s maternal grandmother, who lived in Bergen. Unaware that her daughter had been pregnant, she arrived at the hospital only to discover that the newborn baby had disappeared from the maternity ward. Ringerike Police immediately initiated a major hunt for the child, but without result. Two months later, a Swedish nurse called Joachim Wicklund was found dead in his studio flat in the centre of Hønefoss. He had hanged himself. A typed note was found on the floor below Wicklund’s body with the wording: ‘I’m sorry.’

The baby girl was never found.