Killing Moon

But Våge had not always been the king of crime. The story lingered about him, always would. The girl’s stage name was Genie, a retro glam act à la Suzi Quatro, for those who remembered her. The matter had occurred about five or six years prior, and the worst part of it was not that Våge had manufactured pure lies about Genie and had them put in print, but the rumour he had dropped Rohypnol into her drink at an after-party in order to have sex with the teenager. At the time, he had been a music journalist for a free newspaper and had obviously become infatuated with her, but had — in spite of his eulogising her in review after review — been turned down repeatedly. Nevertheless he had continued showing up at gigs and after-parties. Right up to the night when — if the rumours were to be believed — he had spiked her drink and carried her off to his room, which he had booked at the same hotel as the band were staying at. When the boys in the band realised what was happening, they barged into the hotel room where Genie lay unconscious and in a state of half-undress on Terry Våge’s bed. They had given Terry such a beating that he suffered a skull fracture and was hospitalised for a couple of months. Genie and the band must have figured Våge had had punishment enough, or may not have wanted to risk prosecution themselves; in any case, the matter was not reported to the police by any of the parties involved. But it was the end of the glowing reviews. In addition to panning her every new release, Terry Våge wrote about Genie’s infidelity, drug abuse, plagiarism, underpayment of band members, and false information on applications for grants for tour support. When a dozen or so stories were referred to the Press Complaints Commission, and it turned out that Våge had simply made half of them up, he was sacked and became persona non grata in the Norwegian media for the next five years. How he had managed to make it back in was a mystery. Or maybe not. He had realised he was finished as a music journalist, but had been behind a crime blog that gathered more and more readers, and eventually Dagbladet said that one could not exclude a young journalist from their field just because he had made some mistakes early in his career, and had taken him on as a freelancer — a freelancer who currently got more column inches than any of the newspaper’s permanent reporters.

Våge finally turned away from Mona when the police made their entrance and took their places on the podium. Two from Oslo Police, Katrine Bratt — the inspector from Crime Squad — and Head of Information Kedzierski, a man with a Dylanesque mane of curly hair; and two from Kripos, the terrier-like Ole Winter and the always well-dressed Sung-min Larsen, sporting a fresh haircut. So Mona assumed they had already decided that the investigation would be a joint effort on behalf of the Crime Squad, in this case the Volvo, and Kripos, the Ferrari.

Most of the journalists held their mobiles up in the air to record sound and pictures, but Mona Daa took notes by hand and left the photographs to her colleague.

As expected, they didn’t learn much other than a body had been found in Østmarka, in the hiking area around Skullerud, and that the deceased had been identified as the missing woman Susanne Andersen. The case would be treated as a possible murder, but they had, as yet, no details to make public about the cause of death, sequence of events, suspects and so on.

The usual dance ensued, with the journalists peppering those on the podium with questions while they, Katrine Bratt in the main, repeated ‘no comment’ and ‘we can’t answer that’.

Mona Daa yawned. She and Anders were supposed to have a late dinner as a pleasant start to the weekend, but that wasn’t going to happen. She noted down what was said, but had the distinct feeling of writing a summary she had written before. Maybe Terry Våge felt the same. He was neither taking notes nor recording anything. Just sitting back in his chair, observing it all with a slight, almost triumphant, smile. Not asking any questions, as though he already had the answers he was interested in. It seemed the others had also run dry, and when Head of Information Kedzierski looked like he was drawing breath to bring things to a close, Mona raised her biro in the air.

‘Yes, VG?’ The head of Information had an expression that said this better be short, it’s the weekend.

‘Do you feel that you have the requisite competence should this turn out to be the type of person who kills again, that is to say if he’s—’

Katrine Bratt leaned forward in her chair and interrupted her: ‘As we said, we don’t have any sound basis to allow us to state that there’s any connection between this death and any other possible criminal acts. With regard to the combined expertise of the Crime Squad and Kripos, I dare say it’s adequate given what we know about the case so far.’