to put someone on guard at the gates when they let the children out and to take down the registration number of that car if it turns up again. Also, they should send a letter to all parents recommending that those who can, collect their children rather than let them make their own way home.'
Skarre called directory enquiries to get the number.
Sejer looked back at the kids. 'Did that make you feel frightened?'
'Yes,' they whispered.
'Good,' Sejer said. 'That was my intention.'
CHAPTER 14
A charming farm lay at the foot of Solberg Hill.
The farmhouse was grey with two smaller wings, which enclosed the yard in a horseshoe shape. A framed wooden sign hung above the drive and announced that the name of the farm was 'Eikerhall'.
They crossed the yard.
'Farmers have so many things,' Skarre said. 'A huge house with lots of rooms. Storehouses and barns, horses and cattle, threshers and tractors, fields and meadows, while most people have sixty square metres in the city. If they're lucky they might have a balcony with a single potted plant and a cat that pees in a litter tray in the kitchen.'
Sejer looked at the farm: it was pretty and very well maintained, the lawns were green and lush.
'All the same I don't envy farmers,' Skarre continued. 'Well, not the ones who keep animals. They have to get up early every morning and they never get a day off. The cows are calving and the calf might get stuck or they get foot and mouth disease or they crash through the fence and wander into the road and some motorist ends up swerving into a ditch. Their days are filled with worries.'
'There's no limit to what you know about farmers,' Sejer commented.
He walked up to the front door. There was no doorbell; instead there was a large old-fashioned door knocker, a lion's head with a ring through its jaws. A woman appeared.
'Hello, we're retracing the walk Jonas August took on the fourth of September,' Sejer said, 'and yours is the first house on that route.'
She looked at them and nodded.
'Jonas passed your farm,' Sejer said, 'and then continued along Granatveien. Did you see him?'
'No,' she said. 'I didn't see him or anyone else. I don't know who he was, either, but my children go to Solberg School and they knew him. It's so awful I can hardly believe it,' she shuddered. 'Imagine there's a man like that in Huseby. I hope he's not from around here.'
'We got chatting to a group of children,' Sejer said. 'They mentioned a man in a white car who sometimes waits around the school gates. He rolls down the window and tries to chat to them. Did you know about this?'
'No,' she said, alarmed. 'No, I had absolutely no idea.'
'We've been in contact with the school,' Sejer said, 'and they will take precautions. But if your children know anything, you must get in touch with us.'
'Should we be scared?' she asked.
'Just take care,' Sejer said.
The two men walked on in silence. Occasionally a car or a tractor would pass them, but they were few and far between. After a while they came to a house on the right hand side of the road. An elderly man came out. He was tall and slim with grey hair, like Sejer.
'You're here about the boy?'
They nodded.
He showed them into the hall and walked over to the foot of the stairs where he called out for his wife, whose name was Gudrun. She appeared at the top of the stairs.
'I've already called you,' was the first thing she said. She walked down the stairs. 'Because I did see him. He walked right past our house, I've seen him many times.'
'And what was he wearing?'
'Like it said in the paper. Red shorts and a T-shirt.'
'Were you outside?' Skarre asked. 'Or did you see him through the window?'
'I was standing on the veranda on the first floor shaking the duvets. He had a bat in his hand. Or rather, a long stick which he was swinging backwards and forwards.'
'Did he see you?' Skarre asked.
'He heard the sound of the duvets being shaken and he looked up.'
'How long were you out on the veranda?'
'Just a few minutes.'
'What about traffic?' Sejer asked. 'Did you see any cars once Jonas had passed?'
'I don't know much about cars,' she said apologetically. 'A car is just a car to me and there aren't many of them in Huseby. I've racked my brains, but I don't have anything else to tell you.'
'What