Chapter 3
Yangon
On June 23, 2020, four days after the Royal Asia Explorer had left Yangon, two plainclothes investigators from the National Division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Montreal arrived in Kuala Lumpur, the next stop on the Royal Asia Explorer’s itinerary. Marie Veronique Roy and her junior partner, Jon Martin Wolfe, took a taxi to nearby Port Klang and boarded the Royal Asia Explorer. They collected samples of human hair and bed sheet stains from Stateroom 712, then began interviewing passengers and crew members.
Beginning with the ship’s photographic records, the RCMP computer wizards in Montreal undertook global facial-recognition searches for “Mark O’Mara” and “Ingrid Halvorson.” They rapidly identified “Mark O’Mara” as Mark Miller and “Ingrid Halvorson” as Dr. Ilsa Hartquist.
Using various other surveillance and electronic data search capabilities, they were able to trace Miller to the Hotel Ciputra in Jakarta. They also learned of his death there. Now Marie and Jon were investigating a second death, which raised a new set of possibilities to pursue.
Two months later, the Hartquist and Miller murders seemed likely to end up in the cold case files. Royal Asia Cruise Lines quietly announced the death of “‘Ingrid Halvorson,’ a passenger on the Royal Asia Explorer, perhaps actually Dr. Ilsa Hartquist,” without giving any details. The RCMP later confirmed that Dr. Hartquist had been asphyxiated. Neither made any mention of Mark Miller or his death.
The announcement ignited enormous global interest. The Swedish public and the climate science community worldwide were shocked by unconfirmed rumors of her death. They were deeply distressed by the report officially confirming she had been murdered. Media stories about her death ran for days, including tearful interviews with grieving family and sad and angry professional colleagues. The Swedish Government and the public wanted answers and justice.
The internet was soon thick with blog posts about who she was and who would want to murder her. Organizations opposed to her views aired old attacks on her scientific integrity in a final attempt to discredit her views.
Others attacked by personal denigration, implication, and innuendo. The gist of their assertions was that since Dr. Hartquist was traveling incognito, she was surely involved in some criminal venture, perhaps even a treasonous plot. The false passport indicated that her death most likely had nothing to do with climate science at all. Passport and travel records showed she repeatedly cruised the world under a false name, no doubt looking for drugs or hookups, and who knew what her sexual proclivities were anyway?
Sympathetic scientists, government colleagues, and lay fans rose to her defense. Aside from disputing the merits, some enthusiasts sought to discredit the hostile rumors. They claimed the fossil fuel industry was fomenting them for its own ends, perhaps to hide their involvement. The result was a cacophony of claims and counterclaims that threatened to sully her reputation and taint her call for action.
Faced with these developments, the Government of Sweden officially requested the RCMP to give Dr. Hartquist’s murder the level of attention usually reserved for the murder of a senior government official. The RCMP readily agreed, while stressing that the case was a difficult one that could take years to resolve, if ever. Marie and Jon got orders to expand their investigation.
Both were experienced investigators. Marie Veronique Floquet was a native Quebecoise, descended from a long line of fur trappers turned clothing merchants, turned department store owners. She grew up in elegant surroundings in Montreal and attended high-quality private schools. In 1998 she graduated from McGill University Law School, where one of her great-uncles had been a Member of the Board of Governors.
Marie earned degrees in both civil and common law, joined the Montreal office of the Dentons international law firm and married a law school classmate, all in accordance with her family’s wishes and expectations. After a few years, however, she tired of corporate work and began looking around for something more exciting.
In 2002, the National Division of the RCMP was recruiting plainclothes investigators to focus on international crimes, mostly of the white-collar variety, but increasingly involving potential terrorists. The job promised international travel, mysteries to solve, and ideally a little intrigue. The pay was not important, as her trust fund and her husband earned more than enough to support her “champagne tastes.” She applied and was accepted.
Her husband did not approve, and after it became clear she was more interested in the drama of investigative work than in giving him an heir, he suggested a divorce in 2005. Despite her attachment to him, she agreed in order to escape the strain of his constant dissatisfaction with her chosen career.
After eight years living unhappily alone, Marie found the man she needed and could love—Christopher Matthew Roy, an older coworker and widower with two teenage girls. Their strong relationship helped them survive the hectic years before the girls left for college. Now in her fifties, Marie Roy was enjoying life with Chris, at least when their schedules allowed them to spend time together.
Jon Martin Wolfe also grew up in Quebec, but in a small working-class English-speaking town. His parents, descended from farm hands, labored in the town’s one large factory. He was the first in his family to get a college education and earned a JD degree in common law, with a smattering of civil law, from the Université de Montréal Faculté de Droit. He married Linda, his secondary school sweetheart, a primary school teacher, two days after finishing his university studies.
A stoic, risk-averse slogger, Jon had no desire to pursue anything entrepreneurial in a law firm or business. He preferred the Canadian civil service, where he had the security of government employment and a dependable paycheck. The RCMP wasn’t what he had in mind, but they were hiring in a year when the government generally was shrinking, so he took advantage of the opportunity. Working on white-collar crime gave him all the challenge he wanted. He had no deep interest in clothes or cars; his only avocation was pick-up soccer, twice a week. Within a few years, he and Linda were living happily together in a modest but roomy apartment with their two young boys.
Marie and Jon had begun working together in 2014, and by now they were a smoothly functioning team. Their physical appearance often evoked ironic smiles. Marie was a scant 5'3" tall, with a slight build that she clothed with elegant suits and shoes. Jon was 6'2" with big bones, large muscles, and indifferent suits that had fit him five years ago. He looked like a night club bouncer; she looked like a sophisticated chanteuse. Neither fit the image of a Sherlock Holmes or Inspector Poirot.
Marie’s determination and enthusiasm for finding the culprits nicely offset Jon’s innate caution, skepticism, and pessimism. Marie was the senior and clearly in charge, but she loved the adventure inherent in complex cases, as well as the challenge of overcoming Jon’s more staid, practical, and defeatist outlook. Jon, in turn, admired her creativity and willingness to pitch in on the mundane chores their work entailed, rather than supervise investigations from a distance.
They were both delighted to be given the chance to take charge of the Hartquist case, with its prominence. Marie particularly enjoyed knowing that their efforts would receive continuing visibility. It meant they would not be constrained by the usual penny-pinching of the budget office.
They set about methodically identifying leads and pursuing ideas that would crack the case. After interviewing the Royal Asia Explorer passengers and crew, they left Kuala Lumpur for Jakarta. Although Mark Miller’s body had been cremated, they hoped to retrieve the remains and conduct DNA testing. The ashes still resided at the crematorium. But it would take some time to get through the customs red tape to import them into Canada for first-class analysis and testing. Until they were tested in the RCMP laboratories, it was impossible to say whether they would yield any useful DNA data.
Meanwhile, they asked the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to search Dr. Hartquist’s apartment in Baltimore,