People feel they have the right to know. It has its good and bad sides. Hard to keep anything secret.'
'That could be an advantage for us,' Skarre said. 'If the killer is from here.'
Fritzner went over to the dinghy, picked up the beer bottle, and emptied it. 'Do you think he's from here?'
'Let's say that we hope so.'
'I don't. But if he is, I hope you catch him fast, by God. I expect all 20 houses in the street have noted that you've come to see me. For the second time.'
'Does that bother you?'
'Of course it does. I'd like to go on living here.'
'Surely there's no reason for you not to.'
'We'll see. As a bachelor, a man feels extra vulnerable.'
'Why is that?'
'It's unnatural for a man not to have a woman. People expect a man to find a woman, at least by the time he turns 40. And if he doesn't, they think there must be some reason for it.'
'Now I think you sound a little paranoid.'
'You don't know what it's like, living so close to each other. There will be difficult times ahead for a lot of people.'
'Are you thinking of anyone in particular?'
'As a matter of fact I am.'
'Jensvoll, for example?'
Fritzner didn't reply, but stood there for a moment, thinking. Looked at Skarre out of the corner of his eye and then seemed to make up his mind. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and held out something. 'I wanted to show you this.'
Skarre peered at it. It looked like a hair tie, covered with material, blue, with beads sewn on.
'It's Annie's,' Fritzner said, staring at him. 'I found it in the car. On the floor in front, stuck between the seat and the door. It was just a week ago that I gave her a lift into town. She dropped it in the car.'
'Why are you giving this to me?'
He took a deep breath. 'I could have kept it. Burned it in the fireplace, not said a word. It's to show you that I'm playing with a clean deck.'
'I never thought otherwise,' Skarre said.
Fritzner smiled. 'Do you think I'm stupid?'
'Possibly,' said Skarre, smiling back. 'Maybe you're trying to trick me. Maybe you're such a conniving person that this whole sweet confession has been staged. I'll take the hair tie with me. And take you into consideration to a greater extent than before.'
Fritzner turned pale. Skarre couldn't resist laughing at him.
'Where did you get the name for your boat?' he asked. 'It's a strange name for a boat, isn't it?
'It was just a whim.'
He was trying to pull himself together after the incident. 'But it sounds good, don't you think?'
He gave the young officer a worried look.
'Have you ever taken it out on the water?'
'Never,' he said. 'I get terribly seasick.'
The district prosecutor had given his verdict. Annie Holland could be buried, and now Eddie saw by his watch that more than 24 hours had passed since the first shovelful of dry earth struck the top of the coffin. Earth on top of Annie. Full of twigs and stones and worms. In his pocket he had a crumpled piece of paper, a few words he had intended to read as they stood near the casket after the sermon. The fact that he merely stood there, gasping, without managing to utter a single word, would haunt him for the rest of his life.
'I wonder if Solvi might have a little problem,' he said, putting a plump finger to his forehead, then changing his mind and moving it to his temple. 'Not something that would show up in a scan or anything, she's learned what she needs to learn here in the world, she's just a little slow. A little one-sided, perhaps. You mustn't talk to Ada about this,' he said.
'Would she deny that Solvi has a problem?' Sejer asked.
'She says that if they can't find anything, then it must not be there. People are just different, she says.'
Sejer had called him to his office. Holland still seemed lost in a vast darkness.
'I have to ask you about a few things,' Sejer said. 'If Annie had met Axel Bjork on the road, would she have got into his car?'
The question made Holland gape in surprise. 'That's the most monstrous thing I've ever heard,' he said.
'A monstrous crime has been committed here. Just answer my question. I don't know these people as well as you do, and I actually regard that as an advantage.'
'Solvi's father,' he said. 'Yes, I suppose so. They went to his place two or three times, so she knew him. She would probably have got into his car if he asked her to. Why wouldn't she?'
'What kind of relationship do you have with him?'
'We don't have a relationship.'
'But you've talked to him?'
'Barely. Ada has always stopped him at the door. Claimed that he was trying to force his way in.'
'What do you think about that?'
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, as if his own weakness were obvious. 'I thought it was pretty stupid. He didn't want to ruin things for us, he just wanted to see Solvi once in a while. Now he's lost everything. Even his job.'
'What about Solvi? Did she want to see him?'
'I'm afraid Ada wrecked any desire she might have had. She can be very harsh. I think Bjork has given up. But he was at the funeral, and at least then he had a chance to see her. You see, it's not easy to go against Ada,' he said. 'Not that I'm afraid of her, or anything,' he gave a brief, ironic laugh. 'But she gets so upset. It's not easy to explain. She gets very upset, and I can't deal with it.'
He fell silent again, and Sejer sat, waiting, as he tried to imagine the interaction between these people. How thousands of threads became tangled up in each other over the years, forming a tough, finely woven net in which a person felt trapped. It fascinated him. And an individual's intense resistance to pulling out a knife and cutting himself loose, even though he was sick with longing for freedom. Holland would probably like to get out of Ada's net, but thousands of little ties held him back. He had made a choice; he would sit in those sticky threads for the rest of his life, and the decision had pushed him down a notch so that his whole, heavy body slumped and sagged.
'So you haven't got anything?' Holland asked after a while.
'Unfortunately, no,' Sejer said. 'All we have is a great many people who speak warmly and lovingly of Annie. There are very few forensic clues, and they haven't given us any leads, and there seems to be no apparent motive. Annie was not sexually assaulted or abused in any way. No one observed anything that might be of use to us in the vicinity of Kollen on that particular day, and everyone who travelled that stretch of road by car has been identified and checked out. There is one exception, but that car has been described in such vague terms that it hasn't led anywhere. The motorcyclist seen at Horgen's Shop seems to have vanished into thin air. Perhaps he was a tourist who was just passing through. No one saw his number plates. We've sent divers down to search for her bag, so far without success, so we have to assume that it's still in the killer's possession. We have no basis for an arrest, and so we can't search anyone. We don't even have a concrete theory to work with. We have so little to go on, in fact, that we're practically reduced to speculation. For instance, Annie might have come across some kind of sensitive information, perhaps quite by accident, and was murdered to ensure her silence. The information would have to have been extremely compromising, since it led to her death. She was naked but untouched, which might mean that the murderer wanted to steer us towards a sexual theory, possibly to divert attention from the real motive. That's why,' he concluded, 'we're interested in Annie's past.'
He stopped and scratched the back of his hand, where he had a red, scaly patch as big as a 20-krone coin.
'You're one of the people who knew her best. And I'm sure you've had a thousand thoughts about this. I have to ask you again whether there was anything in Annie's past – experiences, acquaintances, opinions, impressions, anything at all – that surprised you. Don't limit yourself to a specific line of thought, just think about whether
