The Redbreast

GOD IS MY JUDGE.

Harry's mouth felt like the inside of orange peel. The glass in the front door rattled as it was torn open. 'What are you doing here?' asked the silhouette standing in front of them with his back to the light. 'And where's Burre?' It was Even Juul.

Harry sat at the kitchen table with a clearly very worried Even Juul. Moen did the rounds of the neighbours, searching for Signe Juul and asking if anyone had seen anything. Weber had pressing things to do on the Brandhaug case and had to go off in the patrol car, but Harry promised Moen a lift.

'She usually told me when she was going out,' Even Juul said. 'Tells me, I mean.'

'Is that her writing on the mirror in the hall?'

'No,' he said. 'I don't think so, anyway'

'Is it her lipstick?'

Juul looked at Harry without answering.

'She was terrified when I talked to her on the phone,' Harry said. 'She kept saying someone was trying to kill her. Have you any idea who that could have been?'

'Kill?'

'That's what she said.'

'But no one wants to kill Signe.'

'No?'

'Are you crazy, man?'

'Well, in that case, I'm sure you'll understand that I have to ask you if your wife was unstable. Hysterical.'

Harry wasn't sure that Juul had heard him when Juul shook his head.

'Fine,' Harry said, getting up. 'You'll have to rack your brains for anything at all that might help us. And you should call all your friends and relatives to see if she has gone there for protection. I have started a search-Moen and I will check the immediate vicinity. For the time being, there's not a lot else we can do.'

As Harry closed the door behind him, Moen came walking towards him. He was shaking his head.

'No one even saw a car?' Harry asked.

At this time of day there are only pensioners and mothers with small children at home.'

'Pensioners are good at noticing things.'

'Not this time, apparently. If there was anything remotely worth noticing, that is.'

Worth noticing. Harry didn't know why, but there was something about Moen's phrasing that resonated at the back of his brain. The children on the bicycles had vanished. He sighed.

'Let's be off.'