Killing Moon

13 Monday

The Aune group

Mona Daa was sitting at her desk reading a piece by a blogger named Hedina about social pressure and beauty standards. The language was poor and clunky at times, but it had a direct orality which made it easy to digest, like sitting at a cafe table listening to a friend babble on about everyday problems. The blogger’s ‘sage’ thoughts and advice were so banal and predictable that Mona didn’t know whether to yawn or snarl.

Using hackneyed phrases drawn from similar blogs, as though they were her own watchwords and ideas, Hedina employed them with sincerity and indignation to describe the frustration of living in a world where looks were regarded as paramount, and bemoaned how that created so many insecurities in young women. It was of course a paradox that Hedina herself posted soft-porn pictures of beautiful, slim, breast-augmented Hedina, but that discussion had come up time and time again, and eventually — after winning every battle — exhausted reason had lost the war to stupidity. And speaking of stupidity, the reason Mona Daa had now wasted half an hour of her life reading Hedina’s blog was that Julia, the editor, had, due to people off sick and a lull in the Susanne case, assigned Mona to comment on the comments on Hedina’s comments. Julia had, without a hint of irony, told Mona to count which comments there were most of, the positive or the negative, and let that determine whether the heading for the article should begin with ‘praised for’ or ‘criticised for’. With a slightly — but not too — sexy picture of Hedina as clickbait below.

Mona was mortified.

Hedina wrote that all women are beautiful, it was just a matter of each and every one finding their own unique beauty and trusting in it. Only in this way would you stop comparing yourself with others, stop giving rise to the belief of losing in the beauty stakes, to eating disorders, depression and destroyed lives. Mona wanted to write what was obvious, that if everyone is beautiful, then no one is beautiful, because beauty is what stands out in a positive way. And that when she was growing up, a few movie stars and perhaps a classmate were privileged to be beautiful in the original meaning of the word, and it didn’t bother her or her friends significantly to be in the large majority of the ordinary and non-beautiful. There were other more important things to focus on and an ordinary appearance didn’t ruin anyone’s life. It was people like Hedina who accepted the premise that all women wanted and should want to be ‘beautiful’ as unquestionably true that created losers. If seventy per cent of the women around you have, through surgery, diet, make-up and exercise, achieved an appearance the other thirty per cent aren’t able to, it’s these ordinary women, who previously managed just fine, who are suddenly in a minority and have been given a reason to suffer from ever so slight depression.

Mona sighed. Would she have thought and felt this way if she herself had been born with the looks of a Hedina? Even though Hedina hadn’t been born the way she looked in pictures either? Perhaps not. She didn’t know. She only knew there was nothing she hated more than having to give column inches to a blogger with no brain and half a million followers.

A breaking-news notification popped up on her screen.

And Mona Daa realised that there was one thing she hated more. Being overtaken and left in the dust by Terry Våge.

‘Susanne Andersen’s brain removed,’ Julia read aloud from Dagbladet’s website, before fixing her eyes on Mona, who was standing in front of her desk. ‘And we have nothing on this?’

‘No,’ Mona said. ‘Not us or any of the others.’

‘I don’t know about the others, but we’re VG, Mona. We’re the biggest and the best.’

Mona thought Julia may as well say what they were both thinking. Were the best.

‘Someone in the police must be leaking this,’ Mona said.

‘In that case they’re obviously only leaking it to Våge, and then it’s called a source, Mona. And our job is to cultivate sources, isn’t it?’

Mona had never experienced Julia speaking to her in so patronising a manner. As though she were a junior, and not one of the newspaper’s most high-profile and respected journalists. But Mona also knew that if she herself had been the editor, the journalist wouldn’t have got off lightly either, rather the opposite.

‘Sources are one thing,’ Mona said. ‘But you don’t get that type of information out of someone in the police unless you have information to give in exchange. Or pay very well. Or...’

‘Yeah?’

‘Or have a hold over the person concerned.’

‘You think that’s the case here?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

Julia rolled her chair back, looked out the window and down at the building site in front of the government buildings. ‘But maybe you also have someone at Police HQ you... have a hold over?’

‘If you’re thinking of Anders, forget about it, Julia.’

‘A crime journalist with a partner in the police is going to be suspected of getting inside information anyway. So why not—’

‘I said, forget it! We’re not that desperate, Julia.’

Julia cocked her head to the side. ‘Aren’t we, Mona? Ask management,’ she said, pointing towards the ceiling. ‘This is the biggest story we’ve had in months, in a year where more newspapers than ever have had to fold. Think about it, at least.’

‘Honestly, Julia, I don’t need to. I’d sooner write about that fucking Hedina woman for all eternity than foul my own nest as you’re suggesting.’

Julia gave her a brief smile before placing her forefinger thoughtfully to her bottom lip and looking at Mona.

‘Of course. You’re right. That was desperate of me. And wrong. There are certain boundaries you don’t cross.’

When she returned to her desk, Mona quickly read through the websites of the other newspapers, which could only do the same as her: write about the missing brain by referring to Dagbladet and wait for the press conference later that day.

After sending a 200-word piece to the online editor, who promptly put it out, she sat thinking about what Julia had said. Source. Have a hold over. She had once spoken to a journalist from a local paper who had called the metropolitan newspapers skuas because they skimmed through the smaller newspapers, pinched what they wanted and presented it as their own article, with the briefest possible reference to the local paper on the last line so no one could point a finger at them for breaking the rules of the game. Mona had googled ‘skua’ afterwards and discovered on Wikipedia that it was a bird, a so-called kleptoparasite, which stole prey from smaller birds by flying after them until they let go of their quarry.

Was it conceivable for something similar to be done with Terry Våge? She could do a little digging around the rumours about the attempted rape of Genie; that ought not to require more than a day’s work. Then she could approach Våge and tell him she would put it in print if he didn’t share his source in the Susanne case. Get him to let go of his prey. She thought about it. It did mean she would have to get in touch with the creep. And — if he did go along with it — refrain from putting something in print about attempted rape although she had proof.

Then it was as if Mona Daa woke up, and she shuddered. What was she contemplating? She, self-appointed judge of the ethical standards of some poor blogger, a young girl who had only stumbled over a way to obtain attention, money and fame. Weren’t these perhaps things she herself might like?

Yes, but not like that, not by cheating.

Mona resolved to punish herself that afternoon with three extra sets of biceps curls after the deadlift sets.

Evening darkness had descended on Oslo. From the sixth floor of the Radium Hospital, Harry could gaze down on the motorway. Here, at the road’s most low-lying point, he could see the cars moving like a glow-worm at an angle up the hill, towards the motorway’s most elevated point, four and a half kilometres away, where the Rikshospital and the Forensic Medical Institute lay.

‘Sorry, Mona,’ he said, ‘I have no comment, the press release says what needs to be said. No, you can’t get the names of the others on the team, we prefer to work under the radar. No, I can’t speak about that, you’ll have to ask the police what they think themselves. I hear you, Mona, but, again, I have nothing further to add and I’m going to hang up now, OK? Give Anders my best.’

Harry slipped the newly purchased phone into the inside pocket of his suit and sat down again.

‘Sorry, it was a mistake saying yes to keeping my old Norwegian number.’ He placed his palms together. ‘But everyone present has been introduced and the case has been roughly outlined. Before we go any further, I suggest we name this team the Aune group.’

‘No, it’s not going to be named after me,’ Ståle Aune protested, pushing himself higher up in bed.

‘Apologies for the imprecise language,’ Harry said, ‘I’ve decided it will be called the Aune group.’

‘Because?’ asked Øystein, sitting on a chair on the other side of the bed, facing Harry and Truls Berntsen.

‘Because this is our office from now on,’ Harry said. ‘The police are called the police because they’re located at Police HQ, aren’t they?’ No one responded. Harry glanced over at the other bed to make sure the vet hadn’t returned after leaving the room unprompted. Then he handed out three copies of stapled sheets from the printer in the business centre at the Thief.

‘This is a summary of the most important reports in the case so far, including the autopsy today. Everyone has a responsibility to make sure these papers don’t go astray. If they do, this guy is in trouble.’

He nodded in the direction of Truls, whose grunted laugh didn’t reach his eyes or any other part of his face.

‘Today, we’re not going to work systematically,’ Harry said. ‘I just want to hear your thoughts on the case. What kind of murder is it? And if you don’t have any thoughts, I’d like to hear them too.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Øystein grinned. ‘Is that what I’ve joined? A think tank?’

‘That’s where we’re starting anyway,’ Harry said. ‘Ståle?’

The psychologist folded two thin hands on top of the duvet. ‘Well. This makes for an entirely arbitrary gambit, but—’

‘Huh?’ Øystein said, looking pointedly at Harry.

‘To start at a random place,’ Aune said. ‘But my first thought is that when a woman dies, we can, with quite a high degree of probability, say that it involves someone with close ties, a husband or boyfriend, and that the motive is jealousy or another form of humiliating rejection. When, as is highly likely in this case, there are two murdered women involved, then the chances are the perpetrator has no close ties to either of them, and the motive is sexual. What sets this case apart is that the two victims were at the same place just before they disappeared. On the other hand, if the theory about there being six degrees of separation between everyone on the planet is correct, then it’s not so peculiar after all. Also, we have the fact that a brain and an eye have been removed. That can indicate a killer who takes trophies. So, until we know more, I think we’re looking for a — pardon the cliché — psychopathic sexual murderer.’

‘You sure that’s not just the guy with the hammer?’ Øystein said.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Aune adjusted his glasses as though to take a closer look at the man with the bad teeth.

‘Y’know, when you’ve got a hammer, then all problems look like nails. You’re a psychologist, so you think the solution to every mystery comes down to psycho stuff.’

‘Maybe so,’ Aune said. ‘Eyes are useless when the mind is blind. So, what kind of murder do you think it is, Eikeland?’

Harry could see Øystein chewing on it, because as usual he was actually chewing; his thin, protruding jawbone working back and forth. He cleared his throat as though he was going to spit on Aune and grinned.

‘I think we say that I’m of the same opinion as you, Doctor. And since I don’t have a psycho hammer, I actually think we should place a little more weight on what I think.’

Aune smiled back. ‘Then it’s agreed.’

‘Truls?’ Harry said.

As Harry had half expected, Truls Berntsen — who had only grunted three sentences during the round of introductions — shrugged mutely. Harry did not prolong the policeman’s discomfort and spoke himself.

‘I think there’s a connection between the victims, and that the connection goes through the killer. The removing of body parts may have been done in order to make the police believe they’re dealing with a classic serial killer and trophy hunter, so that they won’t look too closely at other people with more rational motives. I’ve seen this type of diversionary manoeuvre before. I read somewhere that statistically speaking you’ll pass a serial killer on the street seven times during your entire life. Personally, I think that number is too high.’

Harry didn’t particularly believe what he himself had said. He didn’t believe anything. No matter what the opinions of the others were, he would have advanced an alternative hypothesis, just to show them that there were alternatives. It was a matter of training to keep the mind open, not consciously or unconsciously lock on to one specific idea. If that happened, an investigator ran the risk of new information being misinterpreted as confirmation of what the investigator already believed, so-called confirmation bias, instead of looking at the possibility that new information actually pointed in another direction. Information on a man you already suspected of murder having talked in a friendly manner to the female victim the day before would, for example, be interpreted as him lusting after her, as opposed to viewing it as him not being aggressive towards her.

Ståle Aune had seemed on relatively good form when they had arrived, but now Harry could see his eyes were becoming glazed, and his wife and daughter were due to visit at eight o’clock. In exactly twenty minutes.

‘When we meet again tomorrow, Truls and I will have questioned Markus Røed. What we find out — or don’t find out — will probably decide how we move forward. OK, gentlemen, the office is closed for the night.’