The Snowman

While Harry Hole gets ready for work, he listens to the radio, where the commentators discuss a study that says that 15-20% of children have a different father than the man who is believed to be the father. Harry thinks about the letter he recently received that mentions Toowoomba, a killer from an old case. A man knocks at the door—Harry’s neighbor has mold, and Harry lets him to inspect his walls. He gives the man a set of keys and leaves for work.

Harry, an Inspector with the Crime Squad, goes to his new office at Oslo Police Headquarters. One of his team members, Magnus Skarre, is now in his old office. He thinks of his previous partner, Jack Halvorsen, now dead, and Jack’s partner, Beate Lønn, head of the forensics unit, and the child she is expecting. On the news, he listens to Arve Støp, the famous journalist and owner of the Liberal, talk about the American election, while he absentmindedly practices speed-cuffing the table leg. He calls Rakel, his ex-girlfriend—he is trying to be supportive of her new relationship. He still loves her but knows he ruined their chance for a future together. After the morning meeting, Harry meets Katrine Bratt, a new officer who tells him that he is to be her mentor. For the past four years, she has been in the Sexual Offenses Unit, and as they talk, he realizes that she is smart and pragmatic.

When Harry returns home, there is a note from the mold man indicating that he will return the next day to continue his work. Harry gets a call from a television producer, whose program, Bosse, he had once been on against his better judgment. Although he’d only had one drink before the program, he had appeared completely drunk. This incident had led to a multiple day bender, but since which Harry has been completely sober. The producer wants him to come back on the show, but he turns her down.

Filip Becker is cooking dinner and gets irritated when his son, Jonas, points out that he is doing things differently than his wife, Birte. When she comes home, Birte complements them on the snowman in the yard, but Jonas tells her they didn’t make one. He notices that, instead of facing out into the yard, the snowman is facing the house. Later that night, he gets out of bed and looks out the window at the snowman, which seems to be looking up at his window.

Harry is waiting to meet Rakel, who wants to talk about her son, Oleg, with whom Harry has a close relationship. When she arrives, he feels a pang when he sees how happy she looks. She orders her signature drink, a Campari, and tells Harry that she wants his relationship with Oleg to continue. Her new boyfriend, Mathias, has been trying to form a connection with Oleg, but Oleg is resistant. She reminds Harry why their relationship ended—his obsession with his job, and the darkness it brought into their home. Mathias is moving in with her in December, and they are getting married the following summer.

Magnus Skarre has been building a report for Harry, even though he suspects it is just busy work. Katrine Bratt comes to his office, wanting to see it because it used to be Harry’s. She tries to get a sense of Harry by questioning Magnus about him.

Harry is lying awake, thinking of his meeting with Rakel. She and Mathias have decided that they are going to spend a few years in Botswana, where he can work as a doctor. She asked Harry to take Oleg to a Slipknot concert, and he agreed. He gets up and splashes water on his face, then goes back to bed.

Jonas Becker wakes up scared without knowing why. He goes to his parents’ bedroom, but his mother isn’t there. His father is out of town, attending a conference. He calls his mother’s phone but gets her voicemail. When he goes to the neighbors’ house, he notices that the snowman in the yard is now wearing his mother’s pink scarf.

Harry and Katrine meet Magnus at the Becker’s house to investigate Birte’s disappearance. Harry notices a melting snowman in the yard. Jonas and his neighbor tell them that they searched the house and found no sign of her. The police have contacted Filip, who will be home soon. As Harry and Jonas are starting to talk, Filip enters the house. He goes upstairs, then returns to tell them that none of Birte’s clothes are missing. Katrine and Harry question Filip, who is adamant that she wouldn’t leave and hasn’t been acting any differently.

When Harry searches the house, he finds a pink scarf in Jonas’s bedroom. He asks Jonas about it and about the two doctor’s visits noted on his calendar. Jonas tells him the scarf was draped on the snowman, but his mother never would have put it there, as it was a gift from him. When Harry asks who made the snowman, Jonas doesn’t know, and Harry begins to see the case in a different light.

After they leave, Harry and Katrine compare impressions of the family, and both see Filip as angry and controlling. Harry believes that Birte didn’t leave the house by choice; however, Filip’s alibi is irreproachable. When they return to headquarters, Harry decides to tell his boss, Gunnar Hagen, about the letter he received.

Gert Rafto is atop a mountain near Bergen, looking at a dismembered body with three other Crime Scene officers. The woman and her killer must have taken the last cable car up the mountain the night before. As they assess the scene, Rafto tries unsuccessfully to impress the others. He is trying to regain credibility after being accused of stealing from crime scenes and of police brutality. Although Rafto was guilty of both, he had been unfairly scapegoated for brutality, endemic in the culture of the Bergen police department. After the debacle, Rafto’s wife and daughter left him, and he feels a strong need to reclaim his old prestige. As he assesses the scene, he sees a snowman on another peak in the distance.

The dead woman is identified as Laila Aasen, and Rafto goes to her friend’s house to question her. Onny Hetland tells him that Laila was meeting someone and gives Rafto the man’s name and profession. Rafto decides to keep the information secret, intending to solve the crime before anyone else. Later that day, Rafto gets a call from the killer, who says that he can arrest them in a nearby park. At the park, Rafto recognizes the person and begins to fear for his safety.

Magnus and Katrine are both working late, and he asks her out for a beer and some food. When she turns him down, he calls her a whore, but she stays calm and cool, making him angry. Harry is again thinking about the letter he received, when he gets a call from Magnus about Birte’s missing phone.

Rakel is at home, reflecting that she is glad she broke it off with Harry and that his job no longer affects their lives. She likes the relationship she has built with Mathias. He is respectful of her space, and has given her plenty of time, which is very different from Harry. Mathias is cooking potatoes and asks Oleg to get more from the cellar. When he hesitates, Rakel explains that Oleg is afraid of the dark, but Harry told him to face what scares him. Thinking of that, Rakel is more convinced than ever that she made the right decision to be with Mathias.

Harry returns to Filip Becker’s house and destroys the snowman. In the center, he finds Birte’s missing phone and realizes that it was too easy to find, which means the killer arranged it. When Harry returns home, more of his walls are dismantled, but he can’t find any mold. That night, he thinks of Jonas, and his own mother’s death.

Harry tells Gunnar about Magnus’s report regarding missing persons in Norway. In the past 10 years, more people have gone missing than previously. Further, those people are disproportionately married women. No one has noticed because the police only track missing persons in their districts. He then shows Gunnar the letter he received after appearing on Bosse. After reading it, Gunnar wonders about the references to the snowman, and Harry relays his suspicion that it is connected to the missing women. Gunnar agrees to give Harry four detectives and two weeks to look into it.

Harry assembles his team of Magnus, Katrine, and Bjørn Holm from the forensics unit, and shows them the letter he received. It reads:

Soon the first snow will come. And then he will appear again. The snowman. And when the snow has gone, he will have taken someone else. What you should ask yourself is this: ‘Who made the snowman? Who makes snowmen? Who gave birth to the Murri?’ For the snowman doesn’t know (84-85).

Harry tells them that the Murri reference connects to a serial killer case that he solved in Australia. When they discuss the possibility of a serial killer in this case, Magnus reminds Harry that, at least three other times, he has thought he was hunting a serial killer, but they have yet to find one in Norway.

They decide that Bjørn will go back to the Becker’s house and assess it forensically as a murder scene. Magnus will make a list of suspects and similar cases. Katrine will go through the missing persons reports and look for patterns. Harry, on the other hand, will attend the Slipknot concert with Oleg.

Sylvia is running through the woods, boots untied, hatchet wet with blood. She curses the day she and her family decided to live somewhere so remote—she is running for her life, and the nearest town is too far away.

Sylvia knows that when the sun sets, she can hide in the woods, and the darkness will hide her snowy footprints. She runs into a nearby stream and downriver in the water. She was slaughtering chickens in the barn when someone approached in the dark and described how and why she was going to die. A loop of wire the person held begin to glow red and then white. She had struck the person with her hatchet before running out of the barn and into the woods.

Sylvia’s legs are going numb from running through the icy river. She trips and catches her foot in a fox trap that she and Rolf set earlier that year. She can hear footsteps approaching and searches in the river for the hatchet, which she dropped when she fell. The killer gives her the hatchet, but she can’t cut the wire of the trap.

The killer raises a loop of wire that glows red, and Sylvia realizes that her last chance is to throw the hatchet, something that she has practiced many times before. She throws it, but it disappears harmlessly into the forest, and she knows that her life is over.

Harry and Oleg are eating kebabs after the Slipknot concert, and Harry is resisting the urge to drink. They see Katrine, who is dressed up and obviously coming from the concert, too. She teases Oleg, making him uncomfortable and Harry upset. Harry gives her a hard time about taking the night off. Katrine tells Harry that she discovered something, and he feels the impulse to drink.

Harry walks Oleg out to Rakel’s car, and she asks about Katrine, saying that they look very familiar for coworkers. Later, Harry decides to go to a bar for a coffee. The bartender pours him beer instead, but before he can drink it, Magnus calls him about a missing woman. Harry decides to go out to her house that night and leaves the untouched beer on the bar.

When they interview Rolf, Sylvia’s husband, he tells them that she wouldn’t have left. While Magnus goes outside to search with the dog, Harry interviews Rolf, and then goes out to the barn. He sees three dead chickens and notices that the hatchet is missing. They decide to determine the time of Sylvia’s disappearance by identifying when the chickens had died.

Magnus tells Harry that the cadaver dog refuses to go into the forest, but they can see two sets of footprints in the snow. Harry decides to go into the forest, but he is scared, remembering being lost in the woods near his grandparents’ house when he was 10 years old. He hasn’t been out into a forest since that time and feels vulnerable.

He follows the footsteps to the stream and, about 50 feet away, sees the hatchet and concludes that someone had thrown it. He turns his flashlight off and stands quietly for a moment before turning it back on and facing the clearing. He sees what he realizes is a snowman, with Sylvia’s head atop, and calls Bjørn to bring the team in. Then he turns his flashlight off and waits in the dark.