Her radio crackles when she shuts the door behind her and she and Karl Björken walk over to Cornelis Loots, Astrid Nielsen, and the six uniformed officers, one of whom is opening the door to the kennel in the back of one of the cars.

Nice work, Loots, she thinks when she sees him hand the dog handler something that looks like a white T-shirt.

Together, they listen to the head of the helicopter unit, Ivar Lemke, over the crackling radio.

‘There are approximately twenty smaller, barrack-like buildings in addition to the main house. We have searched the latter and are on our way to the west side of the area now. Over.’

‘This is Eiken. We will split up and search the south and east. The dog will accompany the central group. Over.’

‘Copy. Over and out.’

Karl Björken, Karen Eiken Hornby, and three of the uniformed officers move towards the eastern edge of the area while the others head south towards the houses down by the lake, accompanied by the tail-wagging German Shepherd.

The first houses are huddled in a group of three. While one of the officers breaks the lock and then continues on towards the next one with Karl close behind, Karen turns on her torch, opens the door, and enters. A stuffy, slightly mouldy smell greets her. The smell of a house no one has set foot in in years.

She quickly runs the beam of light along the floor and then the walls, realising two things at once. The house is definitely empty. And they are definitely in the right place.

The same kind of table, the same wallpaper. What looked like a cot in the pictures and videos is in fact, she sees now, the bottom of a bunkbed. On the wall between the bunks there’s a poster with sparkling water and a group of tanned, flaxen-haired boys in a rowing boat holding fishing rods and smiling happily. Above them, the words:

WELCOME THE LIGHT!

And along the bottom:

CHURCH OF THE COVENANT SUMMER CAMP

Everything’s there.

Except Luna.

She turns around and steps back outside. Sees one of the uniformed officers moving quickly from door to door in the growing morning light, breaking open locks without entering, and Karl and the other officer following after, searching each house as they go. She runs past them towards the next one in line. Sees Cornelis Loots a couple of hundred yards away, shouting something as he exits one house and jogs towards the next one.

Splinters fly in every direction when the next lock is wrenched off and Karen throws the door open. The same stuffy smell, the same sweep of the torch across the floors, the same walls . . .

Empty.

Just then, she hears the dog barking. Two seconds later, her radio crackles.

‘We have her.’

Chapter 61

61