The Water's Edge - By Karin Fossum Page 0,22

time was it when the boy walked by?' Sejer asked.

'I'm sorry, I don't know. I don't wear a watch, you see.'

They thanked her and walked on. Soon the forest enveloped them, and they saw no houses, only dense, dark green spruces. After fifteen minutes they saw an attractive-looking farmhouse on the left hand side and further up to the right a small red cottage.

'You'll take the farmhouse,' Sejer said, 'and I'll take the cottage.'

Skarre crossed over to the farm while Sejer walked up to the cottage on the right. It was set back from the road and he doubted that the inhabitants would have had a view of Jonas August at all, even if he had got this far on his walk home. On the drive stood an old cart full of withered flowers. He found the doorbell and soon afterwards a girl peered cautiously at him through a small crack in the door.

'Police,' he said bowing to her. 'Is there a grown-up at home?'

She looked about twelve; she wore glasses with steel frames, the sun was reflected in them.

'No,' she said, leaning against the door frame. 'They're at work.'

Sejer nodded in the direction of the road.

'I'm here about Jonas August,' he said. 'He walked along this road on Sunday the fourth of September. And I'm trying to find out if anyone in this house might have seen him. You've probably heard what happened.'

'We weren't at home at the time,' she said.

'Did you know him?'

'No,' she said, 'not really, but I know who he is.'

'You're at Solberg School, too?'

'Yes. I'm a Year Six.'

'I have another question for you,' Sejer said. 'Some children around here have told me about a man who sometimes waits outside the school when the bell goes in the afternoon. He drives a white car. Have you seen him?'

She shook her head. 'No, but I've heard about him. I've heard that he drives slowly up and down the road.'

Sejer looked at her closely. 'Why haven't you told a grown-up?'

She shrugged her slight shoulders.

'Not much to tell, really,' she said. 'He doesn't do anything, he just drives around.'

'Stay away from him,' Sejer ordered her.

She nodded.

'I'm sorry for disturbing you,' Sejer said. 'Are you doing your homework?'

'I'm writing about Beethoven,' she said. 'He's our special topic.'

'He went deaf,' Sejer said, 'but you probably already know that.'

'Yes.'

'I've read that he was very difficult,' Sejer continued, 'a bitter old man who had gone deaf.'

The girl started to soften; a smile appeared on her face.

'But deaf or not,' Sejer went on, 'his head was full of music and there is something called the inner ear. And that's why he could write sonatas even though he had gone deaf. Quite impressive, don't you think?'

She nodded.

Sejer walked back down to the road as Skarre emerged from the farm shaking his head.

'Nothing.'

They were standing at the top of a steep hill. It plunged and disappeared into a bend, the forest grew denser and loomed like a wall on either side. Down in the valley they could hear the sound of running water. It was dark there. The road was fairly narrow, it started to disappear into the valley and at the bottom it made a sudden turn before it rose again up towards another hill. They stopped when they had reached the lowest point and looked at one another; they listened to the water roaring across the stones. Sejer took a few steps, then he paused and looked around.

'This is it,' he said, 'this is where it happened. At the foot of this hill. This is where he pulled over and took the boy.'

He bent down to pick something up.

'There's Jonas August's stick,' he said, 'the handle of an old shovel.'

CHAPTER 15

They searched the road and the verges, but found nothing else.

His mother's warnings had been brushed aside, barely noticeable, like the trace of a feather across a cheek and Jonas had discarded his stick and got into a stranger's car. People are unpredictable creatures, they invent rules which they break incessantly and they follow impulses which they later cannot explain.

Sejer and Skarre returned to their car. Spurred on by genuine curiosity and without any ulterior motives, they headed for the town and the older development by the river bank. One of the houses, a former pharmacy, was now the home of a convicted sex offender. His name was Philip Åkeson. They remembered him as mild and agreeable, open and generous by nature, and they decided to pay him a visit. It was unlikely to