questions.’
‘You’re the one who taught her to speak.’
‘If I’d known the consequences…’
Bill looked around the antique shop. ‘You can’t hide them here? It’d be like hiding a tree in the forest.’
‘Do something useful.’
‘When do you want ’em back?’
‘Let’s see if I do.’
‘Is it really about the girls?’
‘In part. If you must know, I don’t want to be reminded that I let Saul see them. And as I’m doing this thing with the watches, I can’t handle them being so near me. Look, you don’t have to understand it. You just need to do it because I’m asking. How isn’t that enough?’
‘It’s enough.’
‘Good.’
Bill took the box and hovered as Sheldon worked. After a few minutes, Sheldon looked at him.
‘What’s with you today?’
‘I’m dead.’
‘What did you do now?’
‘I’m dead. Actually dead. Don’t you remember? It happened in November during the elections. Drunk driver. You took it hard. I guess you’re still taking it hard. I’m your first death since Saul. That’s why you’re doing the watch thing.’
‘I’m doing it because of my boy.’
‘Yes. But my death is why you’re doing it now.’
‘So this isn’t just a memory, then.’
‘Sure it is.’
‘Not this part. I mean, that just stands to reason. I can’t be remembering a conversation with a ghost. I have to be making this up.’
‘Well, no. I guess it’s not a memory
‘Norway.’
‘Whatever.’
‘You don’t sound quite like Bill.’
‘Who do you think I might be?’
‘I don’t like that question.’
A little bell over the door said that a customer had entered the shop.
‘I think we should wrap this up.’
‘What happened this morning?’ asked Bill.
‘Which “this morning” are we talking about?’
‘The one with the little Balkan kid. Why did you hide in the closet? Why didn’t you save the woman?’
‘I’m eighty-two years old. What could I have done?’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘I made a choice. Whatever strength I had, I chose to use for the boy. Life is choice. I know how to make a choice.’
‘Now what?’
‘Every direction is up-river. Ask me when I get there.’
A young usher wearing the name tag ‘Jonas’ is leaning over Sheldon with a kind expression. He says something in Norwegian.
‘What?’
In English, Jonas then says, ‘I think you fell asleep. The movie is over, sir.’
‘Where’s the boy?’
The lights are on and the credits have stopped.
With some back pain, Sheldon walks across the red carpet and out to the lobby to find Paul holding another ice-cream cone — presumably a gift from the concessionaires.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ says Sheldon.
Paul does not smile when he sees Sheldon. He has not softened at all since they’ve met.
Sheldon holds out his hand.
Paul does not respond.
So Sheldon calmly places his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
‘Let’s get out. Get you changed. You can’t keep wearing those trousers. I should have changed you out of them earlier. I wasn’t clear yet. I am now.’
Petter taps Sigrid gently on the shoulder to take her attention away from the computer screen. ‘There is urine in the closet.’
It is almost eight o’clock at night, and the sun is still high. The temperature is nearly thirty degrees in the office. They never installed air conditioning when the building was made. It was utterly unnecessary back them, but now global warming is killing them.
Unlike some of the men in the office — buzzing now with energy — Sigrid has not unfastened the top button of her uniform. She is entitled to, and the office does not stand on formality; but, for reasons she cannot entirely explain to herself, she prefers not to.
‘Definitively new urine. It was still wet a few hours ago.’
‘You sure it wasn’t one of the cops?’ she asks sarcastically.
‘We’re testing it for DNA against the dead woman’s. It isn’t hers, because her own trousers were not wet. I wonder if it doesn’t belong to the missing boy.’
‘Hiding in the closet, hearing his mother murdered? It’s a terrible thought.’
Petter says nothing.
‘How long to run the test?’
‘Normally? Six months.’
‘How about this particular time?’
‘By morning. I think Inga is going to stay late at the lab. She just broke up with her boyfriend. I think she likes being busy, and I broke six laws asking her to put this one in front.’
‘Doesn’t she have a dog?’
‘A cat.’
‘Victor?’
‘Caesar.’
‘Well. Good for us then.’
‘Are you going to the crime scene?’ Petter asks.
‘Aren’t you doing a good job?’
Petter puckers his lips.
‘Yeah, eventually,’ Sigrid says. ‘I’m getting the woman’s name from the landlord, as well as her son’s and the man who probably did this. I figured I’d catch the bad guy first, and then worry about the rest later.’
‘We’re going to Pepe’s after for a pizza.’
‘After what?’ says Sigrid.
‘It’s a nice night. Have a drink.’
‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘I’ve never seen a woman murdered before,’ says Petter.
Sigrid does not look away from the computer screen. She sternly says, ‘You still haven’t.’
At the reception desk of the hotel, Sheldon checks in. ‘Name, please?’ asks the woman.
In an accent that neither Sheldon nor the Swedish woman behind the desk can quite place, he says, ‘C. K.
