across the floor in her Nike trainers with their black stripes. She looked comical. On the counter stood a bottle of ketchup and a bowl of grated cheese. He remembered that he had forgotten to add salt. His grandmother was groaning in the living room.
"Look what I found in the shed, Halvor!"
Something fell to the floor with a thud. He peeked into the room.
"An old school bag," she said. "With books inside. It's fun to look at old textbooks. I didn't know you were saving them."
Halvor took two steps forward and then stopped abruptly. From the buckle on the bag hung a bottle opener with an ad for Coke on it.
"That's Annie's," he whispered.
A pen had leaked blue ink through the leather and made little blotches along the bottom of the zippered compartment.
"Did she leave it here?"
"Yes," he said quickly. "I'll put it in my room for the time being and take it over to Eddie later."
His grandmother looked at him, and an anxious expression spread over her wrinkled face. Suddenly a familiar figure appeared in the dimly lit hallway. Halvor felt his heart sink; he stiffened and stood as if frozen to the spot, with the bag dangling from one strap.
"Halvor," Sejer said. "You'll have to come with me."
Halvor swayed and had to take a step sideways in order not to fall. The ceiling was moving down towards him, soon he would be crushed against the floor.
"You can take the bag to Annie's house on the way," his grandmother said nervously, twisting her wedding ring, which was much too big, around and around. Halvor didn't reply. The room was starting to swirl around him, and sweat poured out of him as he stood there shaking, with the bag in his hand. It wasn't very heavy because Annie had removed most of its contents. Inside was Sigrid Undset's novel The Wreath, the new biography of the author, and a notebook – along with her wallet, which contained a picture of him from the previous summer when he looked tanned and handsome, with his hair bleached by the sun. Not as he looked now, with sweat on his forehead and his face chalk-white with fear.
The mood was tense. Normally he had no trouble staying the course and taking whatever came his way. But now he felt caught off guard.
"You realise that this was necessary?" Sejer said.
"Yes."
Halvor raised one leg and studied his trainer, the frayed laces and the sole, which was beginning to separate along the edges.
"Annie's school bag was found in the shed at your house, which directly connects you with the murder. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes. But you're wrong."
"Since you were Annie's boyfriend, you were a suspect. The problem was that we couldn't charge you with anything. But now your grandmother has done the job for us. I'm sure you hadn't expected that, Halvor, since she isn't very mobile. All of a sudden she decides to clean out the shed. Who would have thought that would happen?"
"I have no idea where it came from! She found it in the shed, that's all I know."
"Behind a foam mattress?"
Halvor's face looked grimy and paler then ever. From time to time the taut corner of his mouth would twitch, as if finally, after a very long time, it wanted to tear itself away.
"Someone's trying to frame me."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Someone must have put the bag there. I heard someone sneaking around outside my window the other night."
Sejer smiled sadly.
"Go ahead and sneer," Halvor said, "but it's true. Somebody put it there, someone wants me to take the blame, someone who knew that Annie and I were together. So it has to be someone she knew, doesn't it?"
He gave the chief inspector a stubborn stare.
"I've always thought that the killer knew her," Sejer said. "I think he knew her well. Maybe as well as you did?"
"I didn't do it! Listen to me! I didn't do it!"
He wiped his brow and tried to calm down.
"Do you think there's someone we should talk to that we might have overlooked?"
"I have no idea."
"A new boyfriend, for instance?"
"There wasn't anyone else."
"How can you be so sure?"
"She would have told me."
"Do you think girls come running to confess the minute they fall for someone else? How many girlfriends have you had, Halvor?"
"She would have told me. You don't know Annie."
"No, I didn't. And I realise that she was unusal. But she must have had some things in common with other girls, don't you think,