The Water's Edge

CHAPTER 22

September 11th.

'Have you had a letter from your school?' Sejer asked.

'What letter?' Sverre and Isak looked at one another, they stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Oh, yes, they had got the letter. They had read it together with the grown-ups and had a serious talk about what it meant. But the letter was about the car that waited outside the school, not the one seen driving down to Loch Bonna.

'Whom did you think it was?' Sejer said. 'Who picked up Edwin?'

'An uncle, maybe?' Sverre said.

'Does Edwin have an uncle?'

He grew nervous and shrugged.

'Did it look as if they knew each other?'

'They were talking through the window,' Sverre said.

His mother, Mathilde Nohr, pinched her son's hair at the back of his neck.

'Now pay attention,' she ordered him. 'This is really important.'

He nodded. He turned away defiantly because she had pulled his hair.

Sejer and Skarre drove the boys down to Loch Bonna.

'Why is the beach called Guttestranda?' Sejer wanted to know.

Sverre put on a precocious face. 'Because boys and girls weren't allowed to swim together,' he said; 'in the old days, I mean.'

'So is there a separate one for girls?'

'Of course. On the other side of Svart Ridge and though it's smaller, the sand is much finer and we can wade almost all the way out to Majaholmen.'

'What did you do while you were here?' Sejer asked.

'We sat on the jetty.'

'Did you see anyone?'

'There was a man taking four dogs for a walk,' Sverre said.

'Do you know him?'

'We don't know him,' Isak said, 'but everyone knows who he is because he's always out walking those dogs. His name's Naper.'

'Tell me a bit about Edwin,' Sejer asked them.

'He doesn't say much,' Isak said. 'He's too busy trying to keep up and he gets out of breath, especially when we're walking uphill.'

'He gets out of breath even when the ground is flat,' Sverre said. 'He gets out of breath if he as much as sees a staircase.'

'What did you do once you were on the jetty?' Sejer asked.

'We ate jelly turtles.'

'Jelly turtles. I see. Are they nice?'

'They're sour,' Isak explained. 'Edwin thinks they're cool.'

Sejer surveyed the landscape. The beach was attractive. There was green grass, a jetty and some bathing huts. The bottom of the loch was covered with stones and, according to the boys, it dropped very deep further out. Three hundred metres with no warning, they explained.

They went on to the jetty and sat down, letting their legs dangle over the edge. They could see their own undulating reflections in the water.

'What were you talking about?' Skarre asked.

'We were talking about Alex,' Sverre said. 'We often do.'

'Who is Alex?'

'He's our teacher, at Solberg School. We're in Year Five and we have him for nearly all our subjects.'

Sverre brushed his fringe away from his face; his hair was coarse and the colour of copper.

'Do you like him?'

They glanced at each other.

'We like him,' Isak said, 'but he's weird.'

Sejer pondered their answer. 'Weird how?'

'He lives with another man,' Isak said. 'He's gay, you see. They both are. Alex and Johannes share the same house. And the same bed.'

They stared into the muddy water. The topic of conversation was making them embarrassed.

'How was Edwin yesterday?' Skarre asked. 'Was he like he normally is?'

'Oh, yes,' Isak said.

'How long was he here on the jetty?'

'I don't know,' replied Sverre. 'We weren't watching the time.'

'There's something important that we really need to be sure about,' Sejer said, 'and that's the car. Was it someone you knew?'

They both shook their heads.

'Did the car stop down by the beach?'

'No,' Sverre said, 'Edwin started walking. They met each other near that substation up there.'

He pointed.

'Could it have been the same white car seen outside the school? Think carefully.'

'Might have been.'

'And you can't tell me what make it was?' Sejer asked.

'No, it was just an ordinary car.'

'Was there more than one man in the car?'

'No.'

Sejer looked out over the loch again. To his left, he saw the headland, a narrow tongue in the water.

'You told me that Edwin can't swim?'

Isak nodded energetically.

'He's let off,' he said, 'because he doesn't want to put on swimming trunks. Edwin doesn't do PE either. He can't manage to skip or jump over the vaulting horse. It's really hard for him to get up again if he falls over.'

'Does he get bullied a lot?'

They both shook their heads.

'No, Alex gets mad. He won't let us.'

They searched the jetty and the headland, but found no Edwin in Loch Bonna. Large, fat gulls screeched ominously at the search parties when they tipped out the rubbish bins in the area. The rubbish was scrutinised. Ditches, outbuildings and sheds were checked.

'What do we do now?' Skarre asked.

'We contact the council and get a list of all the residents in Huseby,' Sejer said. 'We get a list of everyone who owns a white car. Then we visit them and we interview them.'

'There are three thousand people living here,' Skarre said.

'I know.'

'Three thousand,' Skarre repeated as he pulled his mobile out of his pocket and started punching in the number. 'If we assume that each house has three inhabitants and that every household has one car, and many have two, we're talking about roughly one thousand cars, perhaps twelve, thirteen hundred.'

He continued punching.

'And if we assume, and I'm only guessing here, that every tenth car is white and I think that's a good guess, then we're looking at maybe one hundred and twenty people in Huseby who own a white car.'

'Then we've got our work cut out for us,' Sejer said. 'Everyone will need to be processed, I want them all entered on to a database. Ask them about their job and civilian status, how long they've lived in Huseby and check them against our records. And if it's at all possible, I want the officers to check if anyone walks with a limp.'

That night Sejer lay awake staring at the ceiling. He was scared of making a mistake, of overlooking or forgetting something. He was scared of relaxing or, for that matter, of falling asleep, because he would achieve nothing while he slept and he could not bear that. He lay awake imagining the man he was hunting. I'm coming after you, he thought, and I'm persistent. Even if it takes the rest of my life, I will find you and hold you accountable, because you have not only violated Edwin and Jonas August, you have violated our entire society. This you must understand: there is not a single soul in the whole world who will forgive you.