The Water's Edge

CHAPTER 30

They asked themselves these questions over and over:

Why can't we find Edwin? Is it a good sign that we haven't found him yet? Does it mean that he might still be alive? And if we're talking about the same offender, why has he taken the trouble to hide Edwin Åsalid while Jonas August was dumped beneath some trees? Was it possible for two paedophiles to carry out separate attacks in the same place in the space of one week? They thought of every possible scenario; absolutely every single permutation was examined. Were they dealing with a child suicide? Had Edwin's life been harder than the adults had realised? And if it was not about sex, what was the motive for a crime they could only sense the outline of?

A man called the station about some rumours which had started in Huseby and suggested that they might want to look into them.

'Joakim Naper,' Sejer said. 'Let's go and have a word with him.'

'Naper?' Skarre said. 'The man with the dogs? He's already been questioned.'

'I know,' Sejer said, 'but he has heard something. We've got to work with what little we have.'

The doorbell triggered fierce barking and they noticed claw marks on the woodwork.

'You've got to catch this man,' Naper said, 'and you'd better do it quickly.'

There was a violent commotion in the doorway as Naper yanked the dogs to one side and showed them to a living room with a view of the loch. The dogs had left their mark on the house and there was little left of the parquet flooring. His furniture was ancient and worn and some filthy brown strips of fabric hung by the windows, some sort of curtain supposedly. There were several photographs on the walls, all depicting dogs: dogs in the snow, dogs in front of a sledge, dogs on a beach.

'Yes,' he said, 'it's just me and the dogs here.'

He commanded the dogs to lie down. Sejer and Skarre found a space on a sofa covered in long, white dog hairs. Naper was a man in his fifties, short and heavy-set with an impressive iron grey beard, which he kept stroking. Whenever he looked at them, it was with brief, sharp glances; most of the time his eyes rested on the dogs.

'Like I told you. It's not much that I can offer you, I didn't see any people or cars the day Edwin Åsalid disappeared. But I saw the boys sitting on the jetty. Now the rumours have started. You might not have heard them, people don't like making accusations, they're scared they might be wrong. But I don't have any children at Solberg School so I don't care.'

He scratched one of the dogs energetically. The big animal rolled over on the floor.

'These rumours started before the boys disappeared. But now, of course, they've really caught on.'

Naper took his time. His hands were strong and hairy; they sank deeply into the neck of the dog.

'It's about a man who is gay,' he said, looking at them. 'And I'm not bothered by that, I've no axe to grind, live and let live I say. As long as you don't hurt anyone. Anyway, he lives with someone, has done for years, they live in Nordby where they bought an old house which they've done up. And to put it bluntly, a lot of young boys come to visit him.'

'Why do they do that?' Sejer asked.

Naper found an ashtray and took out a squashed packet of Petterøe tobacco from his shirt pocket.

'He's a teacher,' he said, 'at Solberg School.'

'Alex Meyer,' Sejer said.

'That's him. You've already heard, I thought you might have,' Naper said.

Sejer protested. 'Someone mentioned he was gay, that's all. Tell me how these rumours have come about.'

Naper rolled a misshapen cigarette, stuck it into the corner of his mouth and lit it.

'He brings the kids back home.'

'To his house?'

Skarre listened, his blue eyes fixed on Naper's face.

'No one's quite sure what goes on,' Naper said, 'or what part his boyfriend plays in all of this. But I do think it's odd that a teacher opens his home in this way. Sometimes the kids are there in the evenings. Don't ask me what they do, but I think that is strange. You'd have thought he would have had enough of them after a whole day at school.'

'Has anyone asked him?' Sejer asked.

'Don't know.'

'Do you happen to know the name of his boyfriend?'

'I do. Now, what was it? Johannes Kjær.'

Skarre made a note of the name.

Naper flicked the ash from his cigarette. One of his dogs gave a long yawn and Sejer caught a glimpse of its impressive fangs.

'Rikard Holmen, who runs the Kiwi shop, has two grandchildren in Year Five,' Naper said, 'and they've been to Meyer's house lots of times. But perhaps it's all above board. Perhaps it's just what I said it might be. Gossip.'

Again he bent down and started scratching another dog. Sejer went over to the window and looked down at the loch.

'You can see the jetty,' he remarked.

'Yes,' Naper said. 'I don't mean to boast, but this house, which I bought in '94, has the best view in Huseby.'

'Do you know Edwin Åsalid?'

'No. I don't know him, but I know who he is. Everyone does, he's hard to miss. And not that I know much about it, but I can't imagine what his mother thinks she's doing. The odd salad wouldn't have gone amiss.'

Skarre placed his notepad on the coffee table. 'Yes, if only it was that simple,' he said, flashing one of his dazzling smiles, as a result of which Naper missed his irony.

'I've tried to understand this thing about children,' he said. 'I mean, the men. Who want them. I suppose they actually prefer children. And sexual urges are strong, some perhaps can't control them. Like my dogs,' he grinned. 'But surely they've got a brain like everybody else, they must know that what they're doing is utterly wrong. They know it's a crime and that the children in question are permanently damaged. How can they be so selfish?'

Sejer returned to his seat, the dogs watching him warily.

'It's the way of the world, a few people just take what they want,' he said.

'What are you going to do if he abducts another child?' He stroked his beard and gave them a challenging look.

'We'll continue to do our job,' Sejer said.

'I can't believe that it has ended like this,' Naper said. 'It was the last thing on my mind when I was out with the dogs. I noticed the boys when I was walking towards Svart Ridge because one of them waved. And because I used to be a photographer I paid a bit more attention to them. The light over Loch Bonna that day was amazing and I thought what a superb picture they made. Three boys huddled together on a jetty.'