As punishment, he's going to have to come and get it himself. Beg me to give it back to him."
"For just a slap, your hand certainly took a beating, didn't it?" Sejer stared at the flayed knuckles. "The thing is that nobody knows where he is."
"Then he must have taken off with his tail between his legs. He probably had a guilty conscience about something."
"Do you have any suggestions?"
"You're investigating his girlfriend's murder. Maybe you should start there."
"I don't think you should forget, Johnas, that you live in a very small place. Rumours spread fast."
Johnas was sweating so heavily that his shirt stuck to his chest.
"So what? I'm going to move," he said.
"You mentioned that. Into town, is that right? So you taught Halvor a lesson. Maybe we should let him be for a while?"
Sejer wasn't happy. It just seemed like it.
"Could it be that you lose your temper rather easily, Johnas? Let's talk a little about that." He twirled the pen some more. "Let's start with Eskil."
Johnas was lucky. He had just bent down to take his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. He took his time straightening up.
"No," he groaned, "I don't have the strength to talk about Eskil."
"We can take all the time we need," Sejer said. "Start with that day, that day in November, from the moment you got up, you and your son."
Johnas shook his head and nervously licked his lips. The only thing he could think about was the disk, which he hadn't managed to read. Maybe Sejer had taken it and read through everything that Annie had written. The thought was enough to make him feel faint.
"It's hard to talk about it. I've tried to put it behind me. Why are you so interested in an old tragedy? Don't you have more pressing matters to occupy your time?"
"I realise that it's hard. But try anyway. I know that you were having a difficult time and that you really should have had professional help. Tell me about him."
"But why do you want to talk about Eskil!"
"The boy was an important part of Annie's life. And everything about Annie needs to be brought to light."
"I realise that, I realise that. I'm just confused. For a moment I thought you might have suspected me of ... you know. Of having something to do with Annie's death."
Sejer smiled, a rare open smile. Then he gave Johnas a look of surprise and shook his head.
"Would you have a motive for killing Annie?"
"Of course not," he said. "But to be honest, it took a lot for me to call you and say that she had been in my car. I knew I was sticking my neck out."
"We would have found out anyway. Someone saw you."
"That's what I thought. That's why I called."
"Tell me about Eskil," Sejer said, unperturbed.
Johnas slumped forward and took a drag on his cigarette. He looked confused. His lips were moving, but not a sound came out.
In his mind everything was clear, but now the room was closing in around him, and all he could hear was the breathing of the man on the other side of the table. He glanced at the clock on the wall in order to organise his thoughts. It was early evening, 6 p.m.
Eskil woke up with a gleeful shout at 6 a.m. Tumbled around in our bed, hurling himself this way and that. Wanted to get up at once. Astrid needed to sleep some more, she hadn't slept well, and so I had to get up. He followed me out of the room and into the bathroom, hanging on to my pyjama legs. His arms and legs were everywhere, and he talked non-stop, an endless stream of sounds and shouts. He wriggled around like an eel when I tried desperately to put his clothes on him. He didn't want to wear nappies. Didn't want to wear the outfit I found for him, kept on reaching for anything that wasn't nailed down, and finally climbed up on the toilet lid and began pulling things down from the shelf under the mirror. Astrid's jars and bottles crashed to the floor. I lifted him down and was immediately swept up in the same old patterns. I scolded him, kindly at first, and shoved a Ritalin pill in his mouth, which he promptly spat out as he grabbed the shower curtain and managed to pull it down. I tried to get dressed, tried to make sure he didn't damage anything, didn't break anything. Finally