bit and smiled that half-smile of his. "What she liked best was the downhill run. It's set up so you can choose the kind of snow – coarse or fine-grained, dry or wet – the temperature, the length and weight of your skis, the wind conditions, everything. Annie always won. She would choose the hardest course, either Deadquin's Peak or Stonies. She would make the run in the middle of the night in a huge storm on wet snow with the longest skis, and I never had a chance."
Sejer gave him a look of incomprehension and shook his head. He poured some Coke into two plastic cups and sat down again.
"Do you know Knut Jensvoll?"
"The coach? I know who he is. I went to handball matches with Annie once in a while."
"Did you like him?"
Halvor shrugged.
"Not such a great guy?"
"I thought he chased after the girls too much."
"Annie too?"
"Don't be funny!"
"I rarely am. I was just asking."
"He didn't dare. She didn't let anyone get too close."
"So she was tough?"
"Yes."
"But I don't understand it, Halvor."
He shoved his plastic cup aside and leaned forward.
"Everyone speaks so well of Annie – about how strong and independent and sporty she was. Didn't care too much about her appearance, seemed almost stand-offish. Didn't let anyone get too close, as you say. And yet she went with someone deep into the woods, to the lake. Apparently of her own free will. And then," he lowered his voice, "she let herself get killed."
Halvor gave him a frightened look, as if the absurdity of the situation finally dawned on him, in all its horror.
"Someone must have had power over her."
"But was there anyone who had power over Annie?"
"Not as far as I know. I didn't, that's for sure."
Sejer drank his Coke. "A damn shame she didn't leave anything behind. A diary, for example."
Halvor bent his head over his cup and took a long gulp.
"But could it be true?" Sejer said. "That someone actually had some kind of hold over her? Someone she didn't dare defy? Could Annie have been mixed up in something dangerous that she needed to keep secret? Could someone have been blackmailing her?"
"Annie was very law-abiding. I don't think she would have done anything wrong."
"A person can do lots of wrong things and still be law-abiding," Sejer said. "One act doesn't describe a whole person."
Halvor noted those words, carefully storing them away.
"Are drugs available in that little village of yours?"
"Jesus, yes. Have been for years. You guys show up at regular intervals and raid the pub in the middle of town. But this can't have anything to do with that. Annie never set foot in there. She scarcely even bought anything at the shop next door."
"Halvor," Sejer said, "Annie was a quiet, reserved girl who liked to be in control of her life. But think carefully: did she also seem scared of something?"
"Not exactly scared. More ... closed down. Sometimes almost angry, sometimes resigned. But I have seen Annie really scared. Not that it has anything to do with this, but I remember it clearly."
He was suddenly eager to talk. "Her mother and father and Sølvi were in Trondheim, where her aunt lives. Annie and I were home alone. I was going to stay over. It was last spring. First we took a ride on our bikes, then we stayed up late, listening to music. It was really warm, so we decided to sleep in a tent in the yard. We set everything up and then went inside to brush our teeth. I went back to the tent first. When Annie came, I knelt down and opened the sleeping bag. And there was a snake inside. A big black snake, coiled up inside the sleeping bag. We rushed out of the tent, and I went to get one of the neighbours who lives across the road. He thought it must have crawled into the sleeping bag to get warm. The neighbour managed to kill it. Annie was so scared that she threw up. And from then on I had to shake out her sleeping bag when we went camping."
"A snake in her sleeping bag?" Sejer shivered, remembering his own camping trips in his distant youth.
"Fagerlund ridge is crawling with snakes; it's a rocky slope. We put butter out and catch a lot of them."
"Butter? Why butter?"
"They eat it until they're practically in a stupor. Then all you have to do is pick them up."
"I hear you also have a sea serpent at the bottom of