The Drowned Boy

Karin Fossum has won numerous awards, including the Glass Key Award for the best Nordic crime novel, an honour shared with Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her highly acclaimed Inspector Sejer series has been published in more than thirty countries.

About the Book

‘He’d just learnt to walk,’ she said. ‘He was sitting playing on his blanket, then all of a sudden he was gone.’

A 16-month-old boy is found drowned in a pond right by his home. Chief Inspector Sejer is called to the scene as there is something troubling about the mother’s story. As even her own family turns against her, Sejer is determined to get to the truth.

ALSO BY KARIN FOSSUM

Prologue

If a victim falls into water unexpectedly, he will immediately take one or two deep breaths (respiration surprise) and thus draw water down into the airways, which triggers violent and sustained coughing. When the victim is then wholly immersed in water, he holds his breath and will in most cases float up to the surface again. Whereupon he will gasp for air and once more draw water down into his lungs, thus causing further coughing. The drowning person is then overcome by panic, and will scream and thrash with his arms and legs, splashing around on the surface, grabbing hold of anything within reach: a boat, an oar, a friend.

The head is immersed again and more water is drawn down into the lungs in deep breaths. The victim may float back up to the surface once or several times more, but not necessarily three as folklore would lead us to believe. Finally he sinks to the bottom and all is over. This struggle in the water can last for just under a minute or several minutes, depending on the physical health and general stamina of the victim. But eventually he will sink to the bottom, exhausted, open his mouth and draw the water down into his lungs. He will eventually lose consciousness, go into spasms and start retching, become cyanotic (ie, turn blue) and limp. And finally, following this fierce fight for life, he will fall into a coma and die.

Chapter 1

THE DIZZINESS HIT him in short, sharp bursts that overwhelmed him, and even though he fought against it, he lost his balance. This is not good, he thought to himself in desperation, this is it. He tried as best he could to stay on his feet, managed somehow to get over to the mirror on the wall and studied his face with keen eyes. No, I can’t ignore it any more, it must be a tumour, he thought, presumably a brain tumour, why should I get away with it, I’m no better than anyone else, not in the slightest. Of course it was cancer. That’s what we die of these days, one in three, he thought, even one in two, if we live to be old enough. And soon I’ll be an old man, I’m halfway to a hundred. But I’m probably going to die now. Just like Elise died of cancer at the age of forty. Slowly, over time, she was drained of strength, became pale, jaundiced and emaciated, with liver failure and all that goes with it, an attack of hysterical, rampant cell division as she lay in a white, cool bed for those final hours in University Hospital. Stop, don’t think about that now, there’s enough suffering in the world.

He stood leaning against the wall for a while. Trying to breathe slowly and steadily, to gather his strength, pull himself together. Well, so be it, he thought, can’t say I wasn’t prepared, because I am. I’ve always known it would end like this, known it for far too long, subconsciously harboured the fear that it would get me in the end too. Like Elise. Struck down like lightning. By a virulent and aggressive disease: let’s get the lungs, now the skeleton, and then the brain. We’ll break this organism down, because that’s what we do. Got to be dignified about this, he thought, don’t make a fuss, that’s never good. On the other hand, it might be nothing. Please dear God let it be nothing. What God? he asked himself in desperation, I don’t have a god, and perhaps I’m going to die. And afterwards all will be dark and empty, a great nothingness, a deafening silence.

His mobile phone started to ring in his pocket; despite all the chaos inside, he had to get a grip. He put the phone to his ear, and heard the voice of his colleague Jacob Skarre on the other end. He sounded agitated. He was overwhelmed by another bout of dizziness. It was sudden and brutal and nearly knocked him off his feet. The mobile phone fell out of his hand, so he bent down quickly to pick it up. But instead he managed to push it across the floor and under the sofa. He swore out loud and got down on his knees, then lay on his stomach and wriggled in under the sofa. He spotted the phone right at the back against the skirting board. But then something caught his eye, something small and red. To his surprise he saw that it was a Lego brick. It must have been there since Matteus was little, and had managed to avoid the mop for years, a sign of sloppy work. It was a small square brick. A beautiful, completely perfect little postbox-red cube, the most versatile and beautiful brick there was, it fitted everywhere. He squeezed it in his hand, felt the sharp edges dig into his skin. And there, lying on his stomach under the sofa, childhood memories from Gamle Møllevej in Roskilde came flooding back. The white brick house with painted blue window-frames and hollyhocks by the wall, the lawn and old plum trees, and the brown speckled bantams that tripped around the lush, flowering garden. Every morning he was allowed to collect the tiny eggs in a basket. He remembered his father, stern and grey, tall and lean like himself, and his mother’s porcelain figurines in the kitchen window. He snapped back and wriggled out again. Then lay there for a moment, gasping for breath.

‘Are you there? What happened? Did you lose your balance again?’

He muttered something unintelligible in reply. Embarrassed and evasive and anxious. ‘It was you who called,’ he said brusquely. ‘You’re the one with something to tell.’

He sat up, brushed the dust from his shirt, popped the Lego brick in his shirt pocket. The dizziness had finally subsided.

‘We’ve got a drowning,’ Jacob Skarre told him. ‘In Damtjern, the pond up by Granfoss, you remember? About twenty minutes from Møller Church. A little boy, sixteen months old. His mother found him by the small jetty, but it was too late. The ambulance crew tried to resuscitate him for about three-quarters of an hour, to no avail. Some uncertainty as to how he ended up in the water. Also, he was naked, but we’re not quite sure what that means, so pretty uncertain all round. He could of course have got there on his own two feet. But, well, I’m not so sure in this case. If you come over, perhaps we can sort it out. It’s the last house in Dambråten, white, with a red outhouse. The boy is lying on the grass here.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way. There in half an hour.’

And then, after a short pause: ‘Is there something that doesn’t feel right? Is that why you called?’

‘Yes,’ Skarre replied, ‘it’s the mother. I can’t explain it, but I think we should look a bit closer. Let’s just leave it at that, you know what I mean.’

‘Don’t let people stomp all over the place,’ Sejer said. ‘Keep an eye on them. Where are the parents now?’

‘At the station,’ Jacob Skarre informed him. ‘Holthemann is looking after them. The mother is hysterical and the father hasn’t said a word.’

His dog, Frank Robert, a Chinese shar-pei which he simply called Frank, raised his head in anticipation and looked at him eagerly. In among the folds and wrinkles so characteristic of the breed, he saw those intense eyes that always hit his soft spot. Eyes that pleaded and begged, that he found hard to resist, that made his authority drain away like spilt water. The dog was his weakness, he did nothing to fight it; spoiling the little wrinkly mutt was his greatest pleasure. A pleasure that had resulted in a few too many kilos.

‘Come on, fatty,’ he said, ‘let’s go out to the car.’

The dog jumped up, shot over to the door, and stood there whining; he couldn’t get out soon enough. Sejer’s flat was on the twelfth floor, and they always used the stairs, the dog bounding down the steps in a steady, well-practised rhythm. They came out onto the square in front of the block and walked over to the car. The dog collapsed in the back seat of the Volvo with a great sigh, true to habit. A baby, Sejer thought, only sixteen months old. Well, it was, in all likelihood, an accident. Or it could have been the mother, unhappy or psychotic, or beside herself with rage at a difficult child. It had happened before. Or the father, or both of them together; that had also happened before. So, drowned in a pond, he thought, well, well, we’ll see. He indicated and pulled out onto the main road. Again, he felt a faint dizziness, but to his great relief it quickly ebbed away. He was in the car, he had to keep a clear head. And always, when the dizziness subsided, he felt hugely optimistic about the future. If it happened when he was driving, he pulled over and stopped straight away. But it had passed quickly this time. As though it was just a false alarm, and nothing to worry about at all. Dear God, please let it be nothing.

‘For goodness’ sake, go and see a doctor,’ his daughter Ingrid had said many a time, but she was particularly vehement the day she saw it for herself. He had suddenly lost his balance and collapsed by the kitchen table. Sejer had retorted that there was probably nothing he could do, it was just something he had to live with. Maybe the arteries at the back of his neck were calcified. The blood wasn’t getting to his brain, which is apparently quite common in elderly people. And whether you like it or not, I’m getting older. From here on in, it’s a gradual decline.

‘Dad,’ she said, slightly exasperated. ‘Give over, you’re only fifty-five! Go and talk to Erik then, if you don’t want to go to your GP.’

‘But Erik is a doctor at A&E,’ he protested. ‘He won’t know about dizziness.’

‘OK, if you want to be difficult, I can’t be bothered talking about it any more,’ she said, laughing as always. And every time he heard her laugh, it warmed his heart. But now he had to focus on the dead child. Found in the pond they call Damtjern. Don’t jump to any conclusions, he thought, be open and clear and considerate. It’s important that everything is right, that it’s fair. That is what had driven him ever since he was a boy in Gamle Møllevej, and still did in his work as a police inspector in Søndre Buskerud Police District.

A strong and burning desire for truth and justice.

Three vehicles had got there before him: Skarre, the forensics team and an ambulance. They were all standing leaning against their cars, as there was nothing more they could do. The little boy who had drowned in Damtjern was lying on a tarpaulin. Sejer looked down at the boy. A naked, smooth little body with visible veins. Don’t get dizzy now, he thought, not at any cost, not with people watching.

The boy appeared to be well looked after and in good shape, no deformities as far as he could see. His veins were very visible at the temples, a fine web of greenish-blue. His eyes were colourless and dull, but he could tell that they had once been blue; yes, the child was definitely in good shape. If he had suffered any kind of maltreatment, it was certainly not visible.

‘The mother said that she went into shock,’ Jacob Skarre told him. ‘She was doing something in the bathroom and when she came back into the kitchen he was gone. She ran out into the yard and down to the pond, fearing the worst. She saw him by the jetty, threw herself into the water and pulled him out. The water was about a metre deep where he was. And she tried to resuscitate him, but couldn’t. Well, that’s her preliminary statement anyway. We’ll see if it changes.’

‘No visible traumas,’ Sejer pointed out. ‘No cuts or bruises, he looks fit and healthy.’

He checked his watch, it was half-past two. Wednesday 10 August, beautiful weather, no wind and quite warm. It had been a long, hot summer with almost no rain and the grass around the pond was yellow and dry as straw. And now this, this little body with tiny hands and round cheeks, pale, bluish and cool as smooth marble.

‘Will you call Snorrason?’

‘Yes,’ Sejer replied. ‘We’ll drive the boy’s body straight there. We’ll get some answers pretty quickly. If he was alive when he fell in the pond, there will be water in his lungs. We might as well start there.’

‘A sad sight,’ Skarre said, and nodded at the little body.

‘Yes,’ Sejer agreed. ‘A very sad sight indeed.’ And I’m dizzy again, he thought to himself, and took a deep breath. He was squatting down next to the dead child and dreaded trying to stand up in case he gave himself away. Then they would find out that he, an inspector, was no longer at his best, but in serious decline. That age had caught up with him, or worse. So he stayed where he was and waited for it to pass.

‘Do they live in the white house?’ he asked, and pointed to the old building with red window-frames.

‘Yes,’ Skarre replied. ‘And they’re very young. Only nineteen and twenty, in fact, so they started early. But, well, he looks a bit odd, doesn’t he?’

Sejer studied the small face with colourless cheeks. Yes, there was something special about him, something familiar.

‘Down’s syndrome,’ he said, decisively. ‘I’d put a bet on it. Look at his eyes, that’s where you usually see it. And his hands, at that line, the one that runs across.’ He lifted the boy’s hand to show him. The hand was cold and smooth and lifeless.

‘But he’s definitely old enough to walk,’ he added. ‘He may even have crawled from the house down to the jetty.’

Skarre wandered around in the dry grass. His body was trim and agile, ready for action, and his shirt was clean and freshly ironed as always, his shoes shiny. And if these virtues were not enough, he also believed in God. Jacob Skarre had given himself up to the mystery they call faith.

‘I wonder why he’s naked,’ Sejer mused. ‘There must be a reason, but then again, it is warm. Babies only sweat from their heads. Maybe they undressed him because it was so warm.’

‘It’s obviously quite possible that he went down to the pond on his own,’ Skarre agreed. ‘It’s not far. And most children learn to walk around one. Talking of which, I didn’t start walking until I was eighteen months. My parents couldn’t sleep at night, they thought I was disabled.’

‘Who’d have guessed it?’ Sejer exclaimed. ‘You who are so nimble?’ Then he turned to the forensics team: ‘Can you drive the body down to Snorrason and say I’m waiting?’

He took a few steps over the grass. Stared up at the white house with the dark windows. A swing frame added a splash of red and he noticed a small sandpit with some brightly coloured toys in it. Three old bikes stood leaning against the wall. A flowerbed that needed weeding ran along the front of the house. And a blue Golf was parked by the swing.

‘If they’re only nineteen and twenty,’ he said, ‘I presume they don’t have any more children.’

‘That’s right,’ Jacob Skarre confirmed. ‘Just the one. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

Afterwards, when the body had been driven away, he went back to the car and let out the dog, which bounded around happily in the grass. Skarre watched the fat little beast with a mildly reprimanding smile.

‘No one can accuse you of choosing him for his looks,’ he commented. ‘He looks like a dishcloth.’

‘Beauty is transient,’ Sejer parried. ‘I’m sure you know that.’

He walked across the small jetty, and stood there looking out over the water, which was like a mirror. The surface gave away nothing about what had happened.

‘Why did you ring?’ he asked, turning to Skarre. ‘Tell me your thoughts, and why you brought a couple of forensics with you to what was probably nothing more than a tragic accident.’

‘I don’t know,’ Skarre said. ‘The mother seems so artificial. It’s difficult to make eye contact and she’s very evasive and, well, alarm bells started to ring, so I didn’t want to take any chances and, if it is murder, she could get away with it pretty easily,’ he added. ‘I don’t understand the law on that point, I have to say; a life is a life and we’re all of equal value.’

‘Hmm,’ he paused. ‘Not sure everyone would agree with you there. But there’s no doubt that the psychology between mother and child is special. And her young age might also contribute to a more lenient sentence. Nineteen, goodness, she started early. It will be easy for the defence to find mitigating circumstances. If there is a case. If we decide to prosecute. But we shouldn’t speculate so early on in the process. What’s your impression of the boy’s father?’

‘He is extremely quiet and reserved,’ Skarre said, ‘he’s barely said a word. They’re being held separately. They haven’t spoken since they were taken to the station. The mother went back to the house to put on some dry clothes. Holthemann has been looking after them, and he contacted a psychologist from Unicare as it’s obviously a crisis situation, whatever happened. Guilty or not, we still have a dead toddler.’

Sejer trawled for a packet of Fisherman’s Friends in his pocket and popped one in his mouth.

‘And you?’ Skarre wanted to know, looking at him intently. ‘Have you had any more of those dizzy spells that were bothering you?’

‘No,’ Sejer snapped. ‘No, I haven’t noticed anything. It must have been a virus, passed pretty quickly. Happens, I guess.’

‘You’re an incredibly bad liar,’ Skarre smiled. ‘Come on, let’s measure the distance from the pond to the house, I reckon it’s about fifty metres. And that’s nothing for a little lad out exploring.’

Chapter 2

HER BODY WOULD not be still and her hands scuttled around on the table looking for something to do.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked, her voice threadbare with anxiety. Hmm, Holthemann thought, she’s squeaking like a mouse in a cat’s paw.

‘We don’t think anything at the moment,’ he replied. ‘Like I said, we have certain procedures. We just need to take down a statement and then you can go. Don’t upset yourself about it, it’s something we do whenever there’s a sudden death. There are rules that have to be followed, so relax.’

‘He’d just learnt to walk,’ she said. ‘He was sitting playing on his blanket, and then suddenly he was gone.’

‘What were you doing?’ Holthemann wanted to know.

‘I was doing the housework. I don’t remember exactly, everything’s so muddled.’

She paused and a deep furrow ran across her forehead.

‘I think I was preparing food,’ she added, having seemingly made up her mind.

‘You were preparing lunch?’ Holthemann asked in a friendly voice.

She thought again. Tried to imagine the situation. Her voice was high and childlike, and Holthemann smiled. The smile made his otherwise stern face a little softer.

‘Yes, that’s right, I was cleaning a fish. At least, I think I was. And I’m not very good at it, so it took a while. Yes, sorry, my head is a bit of a mess, but I remember I was preparing the fish. And Nicolai was down in the cellar repairing a bike, because that’s his hobby. I just don’t understand it,’ she wailed, ‘I don’t understand!’ She burst into tears again. Kneaded the paper tissue in her hand, unable to control herself. She looked terrified, as if she still could not grasp what had happened, had not fully accepted it, that her child was dead and gone for ever. The boy she had loved, because she really had, was now no more than a tiny bundle wrapped in a sheet, on its way to the criminal pathology lab to be examined externally and internally.

‘Is there anything I can get you?’ the chief superintendent asked. Despite his tough image, he thought it was important to show understanding. ‘Would you like a drink? Can I get you some water?’

‘I just want Nicolai,’ she sobbed.

The chief leaned forward and patted her on the arm. ‘You’ll be able to speak to a psychologist soon,’ he said. ‘He’ll help you sort things out in your mind. Because it’s all over the place right now, isn’t it?’

She started to dry her tears. She was only nineteen years old and she seemed even younger, slender as a reed, with fair, almost white hair. She had long, dangly earrings and pink nail varnish, a top that was far too short and showed her belly, golden-brown after all the sun this summer and adorned with a small, silken pearl in her navel.

‘Tommy’s only sixteen months old,’ she cried. ‘I tried mouth-to-mouth, really I did, but it was too late. His lips were all blue. I don’t know if I did it right either, it looks so easy on the TV. And I couldn’t do the heart massage, I didn’t dare press too hard. I was scared I’d break his bones, he’s only little. And if I’d broken some of his ribs, they could have punctured his lungs, and I kept thinking things like that, because I’ve heard those things happen.’

‘Take it easy now,’ Holthemann said. ‘We’re going to go through everything in detail. The inspector will talk to you, he’s going to take statements from you and Nicolai. Then we can draw up the whole incident and make sure we’ve got it right.’

She put her hands on the table. Scrunched the tissue into a damp ball of wet paper.

‘But I’ve said everything I’ve got to say,’ she sobbed. ‘There’s nothing more to tell, I found him by the jetty.’

She suddenly looked him straight in the eye and was very determined. ‘I know that it was my fault. You might as well just say it, I know what you’re thinking. I should have paid more attention, but I was only away for a few minutes, I only went into the bathroom.’

‘We’ll come back to things like blame later,’ Holthemann said. ‘We’ll have to establish first if anyone is to blame at all. Sadly, accidents happen every day, and this time it was your turn.’

She pushed her chair out from the table, leaned forwards over her knees, and stayed like that for some time, as if she was about to faint.

‘There’re spots dancing in front of my eyes,’ she said, exhausted. Her voice was thin and frail, barely audible.

‘Yes, it’s the stress,’ Holthemann explained. ‘It affects the muscles around your eyes, but it’s not dangerous. Just relax. Try to breathe normally, then it will pass.’

‘I just want to talk to Nicolai,’ she begged. ‘Is he sitting somewhere all on his own?’

‘No, he’s with an officer. I’ll go and get you something to drink. And then we’ll contact your parents. They live here in town, don’t they?’

‘Yes, they live in Møllergata,’ she said. ‘Mum won’t be able to cope with this, nor will Dad. He’s already had one heart attack. The year before last, and we were beside ourselves. I don’t see why I have to sit here,’ she complained. ‘I want to be with Nicolai, you can’t refuse me. Damn you!’

Holthemann didn’t have an answer. He often fell a bit short when it came to people in need. But everything had been done on Jacob Skarre’s request: he’d said that this was an accidental drowning that they might want to investigate in more detail, just in case. He got up, left her alone in the room and went to the staff-room where there was a fridge full of cold drinks. He took out a bottle of mineral water, went back, then realised that he’d forgotten to take a plastic cup from the holder. He headed back to the staff-room, got one, and returned to the room where she was sitting. He handed her the cup. Helped her to open the bottle.

‘You will get all the support and understanding you’re entitled to, believe me. Now, have a drink,’ he ordered. ‘The shock is making you thirsty.’

Chapter 3

MAYBE HE’D BEEN killed, thrown in the pond, unwanted by his mother, Sejer thought. Or by his father, or both; a child that was different, a deviant, perhaps in some people’s eyes, a loser. A sudden rage, a mean thought, an urge to destroy. Or was he seeing ghosts in broad daylight? The door into the garden was open. There was no one watching the boy, he tottered out of the house and across the dry grass on his little, plump legs, walked the short distance from the house to the jetty. Drawn by the glittering water that lay like a mirror in front of him. I’m not being prejudiced, Konrad Sejer thought, I must take absolutely every possibility into consideration. I’ve done this job long enough, that’s how I work. Anything is possible in this case. A simple, clear rule that always made him focus. Too many bitter experiences, he thought, and I don’t like to be duped, or lied to. As he drove, he thought about his parents again, and all that they had given him as a little boy. Love and understanding, leniency. Encouragement and confidence, an understanding that life was not easy, for better or for worse. Careful now, he said to himself, they’re probably both innocent. But Skarre had expressed clear concern. He thought about it and what it might mean. Intuition was important and definitely had a role to play in every investigation. Having a feeling about something, the seed of suspicion that something is wrong. It might be a lack of eye contact, or a strange distance to what had happened. A body that won’t be still, restless and nervous hands, a monotone voice when giving a statement. The sequence of events rattled off as if learnt by rote, a kind of planned version. A hand that constantly dabs the eyes to dry imaginary tears or, for that matter, real tears. Because everything had gone so terribly wrong, with or without blame. Or horror that an emotion could be so catastrophic. I’m going to kill you now because it’s unbearable. I can’t stand this child, can’t cope with this child, and other impossible emotions. All these different signs of lies. And then a depressing thought that kept coming back. The child had Down’s syndrome. Another reason for this unease. Even though the public prosecutor would only consider the facts of the case, these gut instincts were incredibly important. They were based on the experience that they had built up over all their years with the police. Skarre had noticed some nuances that he couldn’t explain, that had made him think twice, and Sejer took this seriously because Skarre was smart. And pretty good in his observations. Two parents sitting in the station crying their hearts out, but were they tears of loss and grief, or were they tears of shock and panic because they were guilty?

He started to think about the recurring dizzy spells again. I’ll have to bite the bullet, he thought, and haul my decrepit body off to the doctor, it’s all downhill from here. Then I’ll have to endure a whole raft of tests and the nerve-racking wait. Maybe there really is something terribly wrong with me, and life as I’ve known it until now is, well, maybe it’s over. The word cancer popped up in his thoughts again, thoughts that would not let him be. He suddenly felt the need for moral support and dialled the number of his daughter Ingrid, to tell her about the incident at Damtjern.

‘Hi Ingrid, it’s me. Yes, I’m in the car. Yes, yes, I’m using the hands-free, don’t be silly. We’ve found a little boy. He was lying in a pond up by Granfoss, his mother found him by the jetty. Just over a year, it’s so sad. Yes, exactly, I’m on my way to the station, I’m going to talk to the parents. Maybe I’ll drop by afterwards, if that’s all right?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course that’s all right. And how are you otherwise, Dad?’

She meant the dizziness. He said he was sure it would pass, it was just a matter of patience, but she wasn’t going to let him get away with such a vague answer.

‘It’ll pass? Don’t give me happily ever after, I’m too old for that. I know you,’ she continued, ‘you’re not telling me everything. But you don’t need to spare me, remember that I’ve been through a lot. And just so you know, I can stomach the truth.’

She was referring to her stint as a nurse in war-torn Somalia, together with her husband Erik, who specialised in acute medicine. When they came back home again, after working there for several years, they had a boy with them. Sejer’s only grandchild, now a promising young dancer with the National Ballet.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I promise, I won’t spare you. And yes, I am still dizzy, I mean, every now and then. But I promise I’m going to do something about it, once and for all. Watch this space,’ he said, in a bright and breezy voice. He was at the level crossing in the centre of town, and the barrier was down. While he sat and waited for the train to pass, he thought about the little boy again. What Skarre had said was right. If this was actually murder, and it was the mother who had done it, she would get off lightly. That special bond between mother and child, so many mitigating circumstances, so many possible explanations. Non compos mentis, he thought, not of sound mind. Personality disorders, psychosis, depression and other complaints, there was so much to choose from. A freight train with dark red wagons finally thundered past. He heard the steady rhythm of the wheels and the rattling of iron and metal, and he counted the wagons, as he had done since childhood.

He could not help but think of a dandelion clock with its delicate white pappi, because her hair was almost as white as snow. He was also struck by how slight she was, thin and fragile as a twig. A child with a child, he thought, it was incredible that she had managed to give birth to a baby at all.

‘Come with me,’ he said, in a reassuring voice. ‘Let’s go to my office, it’s just a bit further down the corridor.’

She got to her feet and then saw the dog. Frank stood up on his hind legs, wanting to say hello, and she stroked him gingerly on the head, but she seemed to be elsewhere. The catastrophe had drained her of colour and she had dark rings under her eyes.

‘If he bothers you, I’ll put him in the car,’ Sejer said. ‘But usually he settles down, he doesn’t normally make a fuss.’

She shook her head. But she did keep looking at the dog, as if he touched something in her, some longing.

‘What is your name?’ he asked as kindly as he could, as they walked down the corridor.

‘Carmen,’ she replied. ‘Carmen Cesilie Zita.’

Her name sounded familiar. And before he could ask, she had given him the answer.

‘Yes,’ she said, as though reading his thoughts. ‘My father owns the fast-food place in Torggata. The one called Zita Quick. He’s had it for ten years, and we both work there. Well, I don’t really at the moment because Tommy’s still so little. But Nicolai does shifts there. We’re open all night.’

She paused and looked at Sejer with blue eyes surrounded by thick black lashes. ‘People come all the way from Oslo for our food,’ she said, proudly.

He opened the door to his office. Frank slipped in, went over to the blanket by the window and lay down.

‘Please, find yourself a chair,’ he told her.

He studied the slight girl.

‘My condolences, Carmen,’ he added. ‘It’s terribly sad.’