The Water's Edge - By Karin Fossum Page 0,49

a good mother, she thought, and many are on their own with a child and they manage. I can manage, I can be strong if I have to. I want the love that others have, the love that lasts until death. I want it now. Yet again she peered at Reinhardt. He was happy to be who he was for as long as it lasted. He liked what he had, his job, his house and his car. I'm growing older, she thought, time's running out. These thoughts gnawed at her more and more. Slowly an idea began to emerge. She would do something irresponsible, she would quite simply deceive him. Help herself and take what she wanted. Men talked of female wiles, she told herself, well, I'll resort to those now. The thought of this made her heart beat faster and she feared her eyes would betray her plan. So she closed them and leaned her head against the headrest.

CHAPTER 29

He felt hungry, but he was unable to eat anything.

Not that there was much to eat either: the fridge was empty. A few times he opened the fridge door to look inside while he tried to find his inner resolve. He found none. On the contrary, he discovered as the days passed that his hunger seemed to protect him, he felt encapsulated by it as if it made him invisible to the rest of the world. This feeling quelled some of his fear, because he did feel fear. He had pulled a chair over to the window where he rested his elbows on the windowsill, or he would sit in front of the television where he watched every news broadcast, the photos of the two boys glowing at him. Various experts analysed the incidents; all their theories were wrong. He was spending more time in the wheelchair, he experienced an odd joy rolling around in it. He rolled out into the kitchen to get some water, he rolled back into the living room and parked in front of the television. In the wheelchair he became someone else, in the wheelchair he was a geriatric with withered limbs, a poor thing you could not blame for anything. It was a relief to turn into someone else. He started going to bed early, it made the days shorter. Sometimes he had long, imaginary conversations with the police.

Listen to me, please, I can explain this!

Later in the evening, he would collapse in self-pity and shed bitter tears. If they became unstoppable, and this had happened, he would throw himself on the sofa, face away from the room and pull a blanket over himself. This is a dreadful existence, he thought, I'm a prisoner in my own home. I might as well be in prison, at least I would get a hot meal there and I could chat to the guards. He licked away his own tears, their salty taste awakened raw memories in him. He lay alone in the dark like this, but all the time coiled like a spring. He knew they would come and if he did not let them in, they would break down his door.

CHAPTER 30

They asked themselves these questions over and over:

Why can't we find Edwin? Is it a good sign that we haven't found him yet? Does it mean that he might still be alive? And if we're talking about the same offender, why has he taken the trouble to hide Edwin ?salid while Jonas August was dumped beneath some trees? Was it possible for two paedophiles to carry out separate attacks in the same place in the space of one week? They thought of every possible scenario; absolutely every single permutation was examined. Were they dealing with a child suicide? Had Edwin's life been harder than the adults had realised? And if it was not about sex, what was the motive for a crime they could only sense the outline of?

A man called the station about some rumours which had started in Huseby and suggested that they might want to look into them.

'Joakim Naper,' Sejer said. 'Let's go and have a word with him.'

'Naper?' Skarre said. 'The man with the dogs? He's already been questioned.'

'I know,' Sejer said, 'but he has heard something. We've got to work with what little we have.'

The doorbell triggered fierce barking and they noticed claw marks on the woodwork.

'You've got to catch this man,' Naper said, 'and you'd better do it quickly.'

There was a violent commotion in the doorway as Naper