The Water's Edge - By Karin Fossum Page 0,51
got a brain like everybody else, they must know that what they're doing is utterly wrong. They know it's a crime and that the children in question are permanently damaged. How can they be so selfish?'
Sejer returned to his seat, the dogs watching him warily.
'It's the way of the world, a few people just take what they want,' he said.
'What are you going to do if he abducts another child?' He stroked his beard and gave them a challenging look.
'We'll continue to do our job,' Sejer said.
'I can't believe that it has ended like this,' Naper said. 'It was the last thing on my mind when I was out with the dogs. I noticed the boys when I was walking towards Svart Ridge because one of them waved. And because I used to be a photographer I paid a bit more attention to them. The light over Loch Bonna that day was amazing and I thought what a superb picture they made. Three boys huddled together on a jetty.'
CHAPTER 31
The leaves were falling from the trees, twirling slowly and mournfully. October brought black, cool nights. Sejer was busy with reports and witness statements. He studied the results from the door-to-door inquiries in Huseby, where anyone who owned a white car had been asked to answer a few simple questions. They had found nothing. They had gone through the registers of Ford Granadas and Mitsubishi Galants before checking out the rest of the district. They had accessed Autosys and searched for white cars regardless of brand. They initiated new searches. They even dragged Loch Bonna. This time they searched beyond the headland all the way to Svart Ridge but without success. They uncovered drains, they searched woods, they went into outhouses and down into basements.
At Solberg School the teachers struggled to maintain calm.
The days seemed like regular school-days, yet a state of emergency existed and everyone was allowed to speak if there was something they wanted to talk about. Trauma counsellors had advised the teachers to encourage the children to voice their thoughts, and as a result one boy suggested that Edwin might have been cut up since he had not been found. 'He might be all over the place in a million little pieces,' he declared precociously. His claim caused the other children to give him horrified looks. Others were adamant that Edwin was at the bottom of Loch Bonna. Others that he had been kidnapped and taken aboard a ship where he might be someone's slave and was being starved; perhaps he was now as thin as a matchstick and unrecognisable. Edwin's calm nature, Edwin's lethargy, Edwin's soft, modest voice had left a huge void and the pupils surpassed each other in praising him whenever his name was mentioned. Even though they had said things about him behind his back, even though they had mimicked the way he waddled and nicknamed him Fatty, they were on their best behaviour now and they genuinely missed Edwin. They were untroubled by their transition from mockery to tolerance. During lessons they would stare at his empty chair.
There was a greater degree of calm in Jonas August's class because the children there had attended his funeral. He was buried behind the church in the last row between the family plots of Haraldson and Ruste. On several occasions they had all gone to the church and stood in a semicircle around his grave thinking sad thoughts. A few stamped the ground in front of the headstone cautiously. They suddenly realised with awesome impact that he lay alone in the black earth, right underneath their feet.
Almost reluctantly the press turned its attention to other cases. True, they were not nearly as spectacular, but they were fresh. On the two months' anniversary of the discovery of Jonas August's body Dagbladet ran a major article about the boys. A unique case in Norwegian crime history, an extraordinary riddle for the police. Everyone feared that there would be a third attack.
'Time's passing,' Skarre said, 'and we can't even be sure what sort of crime we're dealing with.'
'Do you remember Hel茅n Nilsson?' Sejer said. 'She, too, was ten years old. Hel茅n Nilsson from H枚rby in Sweden. She was found on a woodland road wrapped in a bin liner. It took police fifteen years to find her killer. Fifteen years and ten thousand interviews. We just have to keep going.'
CHAPTER 32
Reinhardt had fantasised about it countless times, the moment he would finally come face to face with the man from