Smoke Screen Read online

  Oslo, New Year’s Eve. The annual firework celebration is rocked by an explosion, and the city is put on terrorist alert.

  Police officer Alexander Blix and blogger Emma Ramm are on the scene, and when a severely injured survivor is pulled from the icy harbour, she is identified as the mother of two-year-old Patricia Smeplass, who was kidnapped on her way home from kindergarten ten years earlier … and never found.

  Blix and Ramm join forces to investigate the unsolved case, as public interest heightens, the terror threat is raised, and it becomes clear that Patricia’s disappearance is not all that it seems…

  SMOKE SCREEN

  JØRN LIER HORST & THOMAS ENGER

  Translated by Megan Turney

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  COPYRIGHT

  PROLOGUE

  1st January 2019

  The heavy iron door at the end of the corridor slammed shut. The sound reverberated along the brick walls.

  Christer Storm Isaksen lifted his head from the book he was reading and listened. Short, slight steps on the linoleum floor.

  It was Frankmann. He was the only one who would ever bother doing the extra round, if there were a reason to do so.

  The steps came to a halt outside Isaksen’s cell. There was a rattling of keys before the sound of a knuckle knocking lightly on the door.

  Isaksen put the book down.

  ‘Yes?’

  The upper hinge creaked as Frankmann appeared in the open doorway. It looked as if he had lost even more weight over the last week. His uniform hung loosely from his thin torso.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ he said, accompanying the greeting with a nod. He had a white envelope in his hand.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ Isaksen nodded back.

  He wanted to ask him how his Christmas had been, but held back. He was curious about the envelope.

  ‘A letter came for you,’ Frankmann said. ‘I thought you would want it sooner rather than later.’

  Isaksen took it from him.

  No stamp or address. Just his name, written in small, round letters. The writing was a little slanted and somewhat unclear, as if the writer had been in a hurry.

  ‘It was in the post box at the visitor entrance,’ Frankmann explained.

  Isaksen felt the envelope. It contained something stiffer than a letter. Maybe a postcard.

  He rubbed his thumb over the place where the stamp should have been, turned it over. No return address.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he had received a handwritten letter. The Christmas cards had stopped coming too, after his mother had died.

  Frankmann was still standing at the cell door, an inquisitive expression on his face.

  ‘We would normally check it over first, with the rest of the post,’ he said; an explanation as to why he was waiting to watch Isaksen open it. ‘But the mutt won’t be here until Friday,’ he added, referring to the sniffer dog.

  Isaksen peeled away the flap on the envelope and gently unsealed it. With two fingers, he opened it just wide enough to peek inside.

  It was a photo.

  He took it out and felt an instant tightening in his chest.

  The girl in the photo was eight, maybe nine years old. She was wearing a blue hoodie and had her long, brown hair pulled back into a high ponytail. She was sat behind a school desk, resting her hands on a book. She had braces too, which she hadn’t managed to hide – the photo capturing the exact moment she had grinned at the camera. There was a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were ice blue, identical to his own.

  ‘It’s her.’ The words escaped from between his lips.

  Frankmann took a step closer.

  ‘Who?’ he asked.

  Isaksen didn’t answer.

  It’s her, he repeated to himself. Her: the girl everyone had told him was dead.

  1

  Twenty hours earlier

  The New Year’s Eve fireworks illuminated the city. Shrieking arrows shot into the sky and exploded in an array of multi-coloured patterns. Each eruption varied in strength and intensity. Over the last few minutes, the explosions had become more and more frequent.

  A heavy mist had drifted across the fjord and lay like a lid over the harbour in front of Oslo City Hall. The drop in temperature had forced the spectators to button up their coats and tighten their scarves. They huddled together in the snow, laughing and shouting.

  Emma Ramm was well wrapped up in a thick winter coat. She was wearing wellies, with two pairs of woollen socks. But she was not part of the crowd milling around in the square – the New Year’s revellers staring up at the sky, holding their phones out in front of them. Neither was she among those frantically trying to get in touch with their friends and family, moments before midnight. Instead, she was making her way through the crowd, studying those she passed, looking for a sign, for anything that would indicate whether they were actually there to celebrate, or if they were there for another reason. She was unsure, however, what the signs for that would even look like.

  It had been a little over half an hour since Emma had left Irene’s flat, halfway through a quarrel she had been having with Kasper, who had suddenly decided that he didn’t want to go to the annual New Year’s party in Amager after all, as he’d rather start the New Year in bed next to her. He could not understand why she absolutely had to be down by City Hall when the clock struck twelve. She didn’t even like fireworks.

  ‘I just have to,’ she had replied.

  Kasper had laughed at her vague and childish answer. He was grumpy by that point as well, so had replied: ‘Fine, but you can go by yourself. I’m not going out just to get cold and wet.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Martine had chimed in. ‘I want to see the fireworks. Can’t I go with you, Aunty? Please?’

  Emma had smiled but shook her head. She didn’t want to have to explain to her niece that it might be too dangerous for a small child. And for adults too, for that matter. Lots of people end up ringing in
the New Year in A&E with a firework-related injury.

  But there was another reason.

  Over the last few months, Emma had played a major part in exposing what the media had called ‘the countdown murders’. In fact, she had almost been one of the victims. The killer had intended to make her murder the grand finale to his countdown. So as New Year’s Eve approached, and with that the public countdown to midnight, she had grown anxious that someone else might be inspired to attempt something similar.

  Emma had confided in her therapist about this irrational fear. He had nodded and said that he understood her logic, but that there was no reason to believe something like that was going to happen again. Emma had tried to convince herself that her thoughts were just ridiculous speculations, but the idea had already taken hold and had only gained momentum. Her mind kept returning to the huge firework display that was always held on the square between the harbour and Oslo City Hall, where thousands of people gathered every New Year’s Eve. Her therapist had eventually suggested that she should go down to the harbour that night, that she should tackle her fear head on, see for herself that nothing bad was going to happen, and then learn from that experience.

  In fact, in the end, she had decided to leave the whole thing be, but earlier that evening an almost claustrophobic panic had washed over her, a sudden fear of what Kasper might do once the clock turned twelve. Not that she thought he would get down on one knee and propose or anything – they had only known each other for eight months – but it wasn’t out of the realms of possibility that he might confess his love for her. Emma was still not quite sure how she felt about him, other than thinking that he was a nice guy who she enjoyed spending time with, so long as they lived in separate cities and didn’t see each other all that often. She just wanted to carry on enjoying her relatively uncomplicated existence as the new crime reporter for news.no, without having to think too much about the future.

  She took her phone out. Kasper had tried to call about a minute ago, but she couldn’t be bothered to call him back. It was 23:59. Emma took a deep breath. People had started throwing their arms around each other. They shouted and sloshed around in the melting snow. The sounds of fireworks crackling and booming, people yelling and screaming filled the air around her. Emma didn’t miss a single thing about the nights she used to spend out partying in Oslo, except perhaps the momentary bliss she would feel after a glass or two, before it inevitably tipped the other way.

  Someone had started the countdown. Emma felt as if something sharp and uncomfortable were bearing down on her stomach and chest. She tried to hold on to her therapist’s assurances that nothing bad was about to happen. Soon she could go home to Irene, Kasper and Martine, free from worry, ready to begin the New Year.

  Five!

  Four!

  Three!

  Two!

  One!

  Everything was suddenly bathed in a blinding light. A violent explosion shook the ground beneath her. The wave of pressure and heat knocked her off her feet. Debris tore through the air. She curled up on the ground, her arms wrapped around her head, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  At the edge of the harbour, about thirty metres away, an immense column of orange, yellow and red flames that had just erupted into the sky was now starting to collapse, the flames cascading back down to the ground. Her ears were ringing, but she could still hear the cries, she could see the people in the crowd, who had only a moment ago been celebrating together. Now they were clinging on to each other, pushing past each other, panicking, searching for their friends, partners, children, something to explain what had just happened.

  Emma got up. Black rags and scraps were descending from the sky. A man came staggering towards her, one of his arms on fire. He yelled and feverishly slapped at the flames before managing to tear his jacket off.

  While the rational part of her had tried to hold on to the belief that her countdown hypothesis was absurd, an irrational prediction, the sensation she had felt growing over the last few weeks had still twisted itself into a painful knot in the pit of her stomach.

  But there was no ominous feeling anymore. There was no fear.

  It was now reality.

  And around her, the fireworks continued to erupt.

  2

  Alexander Blix battled his way through the flood of terrified people. He leapt over a flowerbed that was hiding under the snow and slipped on a patch of ice, somehow managing to stay on his feet. Sofia Kovic was close behind him. He listened through his earpiece as she radioed into the operations centre, alerting them to the explosion that had just occurred in front of Oslo City Hall.

  A man was stumbling towards them, a charred open wound on his face and a bottle of champagne still in his hand. A woman with something sticking out of her leg limped nearby.

  Blix ran past her. People were sprawled across the ground, blood-soaked, groaning with pain. Others were sat half upright, dazed, their clothes in tatters. A dark, grey smoke screen had engulfed them.

  He stopped, unsure where to begin.

  Four bodies lay motionless near the end of the harbour. He ran towards them and knelt by the first body. A young woman with blonde hair. Shrapnel from the explosion had punctured her left eye. He searched her neck for a pulse but couldn’t find one. He moved over to another woman who had injuries to her chest and stomach. Her mouth was agape, her eyes wide open. He couldn’t find her pulse either.

  Kovic had bent over a man wearing a grey coat. She looked up at Blix, met his gaze and shook her head.

  Down at the water’s edge, slumped across one of the mooring posts, was another body, scorched from the waist up. A man, by the looks of it. His injuries were more severe than the others’. Half of his face and most of his chest had been torn to shreds. There was no point checking for a pulse.

  Four dead.

  The explosion had left a huge crater in the asphalt. The remnants of whatever had exploded were scattered around them, still on fire. Orders had started to come in over the police radio, something about a bomb, and that they should treat it as a terrorist attack.

  Terrorism, Blix thought. Christ.

  A shout close behind him made him spin round. Two well-dressed men were pointing into the dark water. There was a body floating face down, arms outstretched.

  Blix tore his earpiece out, pulled his jacket off and detached his duty belt. He took a step to the edge of the quay and dived in. He hadn’t stopped to think about how cold it would be, but when he broke the surface he felt like he’d leapt into a pool of ice. The muscles of his face froze. It felt like a hard, cold clamp was tightening around his head. The water penetrated through his shirt, seeped into his trousers, filled his boots. His chest clenched. He had never tried this hard to move his limbs before, but they refused to obey him.

  His buoyancy sent him back up to the surface. He struggled to catch his breath, and had to stop and wait for his muscles to relax.

  He could hear someone shouting at him from up on the square.

  ‘Ten metres, to your left.’ It was Kovic’s voice. ‘Be careful!’ she added.

  Blix drew in a breath and tried to command his body to swim, but his clothes were weighing him down, sticking to his skin. The intensity of the cold water was making his movements slow and ineffective. It felt as if he were barely moving, and his heavy boots were dragging him down.

  ‘Just five more metres! Further left.’

  Blix propelled himself forwards with a few wide strokes, stretching out his hand on the final one. He made a grasping motion, as much of a grab as he could command his fingers to make. Clothes, a frozen, lifeless hand. Blix clutched the body just as it began to dip below the surface. He tried to roll the person over but only managed to turn them halfway before they slipped out of his grip. The effort sent him below the water again. He swallowed a mouthful, spluttered, coughed and spat. He had no choice but to wait until his body had stopped protesting, so that he could concentrate on turning the lifeless person onto their
back.

  It was a woman.

  Her face was partially concealed by her long, dark hair, which was pasted across her severely burned skin. Blix took hold of her under her armpit and swam backwards towards the square.

  ‘Over here!’ he heard Kovic yell.

  He turned his head and saw his colleague standing with one foot down on the jetty, ready to pull them up. His body stiffened with each kick. He spat and gasped as he struggled to keep the woman’s head above water. Behind him, Kovic took another step down into the water.

  His body was about to give out. He managed to grab one of the steps and draw himself and the woman up onto the ladder. His right foot found one of the steps. With one last push he hoisted the limp body out of the water so that Kovic could grab her jacket collar. More people were rushing over to help. Blix was finally able to let go of the woman, and he clung to the jetty, gasping for air.

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ he heard Kovic shout down to him.

  Blix coughed a few more times before shaking his head and attempting to heave himself up and out of the water. But his legs would not obey him. His arms were frozen stiff. Kovic reached down anyway and grabbed his forearm with both hands. Someone else came over to help. Together, they managed to haul him up.

  The paramedics up on the square were already seeing to the lifeless woman. Blix leaned forwards and rested his hands on his knees, letting the water drain off him. He was not trained for this. Not in the slightest. He usually sat behind a desk. He investigated crime scenes, questioned witnesses. It had been nearly twenty years since he had last been on active duty. He had only volunteered to work on New Year’s Eve so that his younger colleagues with children could celebrate with their families at home.

  He expelled the water from his nose, straightened up slightly and noticed that he was bleeding from a cut on one of his hands.

  The explosions of the New Year fireworks merged with the sound of sirens. Kovic appeared with a woollen blanket and wrapped it around him. A woman was standing beside her. Blix hadn’t noticed her at first, but, recognising who it was, he attempted to smile.