like all the other visitors. She didn’t come from around here. That was obvious, without him really knowing why. The summer season was hell. City folk everywhere, throwing their money around. They thought that everything was for sale.
“If the price is right,” the real estate agent had said in the spring. “Name your price, Aksel.”
He didn’t want to sell the house. Some Boston bigwig or another would be happy to pay a million dollars for the small house by the beach. A million! Aksel snorted at the thought. The house was small and he barely had enough money to cover more than basic maintenance. He did most of it himself, but the materials cost money, as did plumbers and electricians. This winter he’d had to put in a new water pipe when the old one burst. The pressure had fallen to a dribbling nothing from the kitchen tap and the water board had threatened to take him to court if he didn’t do something immediately. When it was all done and the bill had been paid, there were only fifty-six dollars left in Aksel Seier’s savings account.
A million!
The buyer would just pull the whole thing down. It was the location that was attractive. Waterfront.
He put away his tools. The lady in the Taurus was still sitting there, which irritated him. Normally at this time of year he was quite tolerant; he would hardly survive the summer if he weren’t. But this lady was different. He felt she was staring at him. Her car wasn’t parked for the ocean view. It was too far up the road. Too close to the big oak tree that towered over the Piccolas’ house; they would have to do something about it this summer, chop it down, at least saw off some branches. They hung heavy over the roof now and scraped off the shingles. Soon it would start leaking.
The lady in the car was not interested in the ocean. It was him she was interested in. An age-old fear ripped through his body. Aksel Seier caught his breath and turned around abruptly. Then he went in and locked the door, even though it was no later than eleven in the morning.
Aksel Seier was just as Johanne had imagined. Well built and stocky. From a distance it was difficult to tell whether he was clean-shaven, but there was certainly no beard to speak of. It was almost as if she had seen him before. From that first night when she read Alvhild Sofienberg’s papers, she had tried to put together a picture of the old Aksel Seier, thirty-five years after his release. His jacket was threadbare and dark blue. He was wearing heavy boots, even though the outside temperature was more than 68 degrees. His hair was gray and a bit too long, as if he didn’t care about his appearance. Even from a hundred yards away, it was easy to see that he had big hands.
He had looked over in her direction a couple of times. She tried to shrink in the car seat. Even though she was not doing anything illegal, she felt herself blush when he straightened his back and squinted over at her for the second time. If he had really seen what she looked like, it would be embarrassing to approach him later.
She wouldn’t talk to him. She could see that he was content. He had a good life. The house might be small and weathered, but the site would be valuable. There was a small pickup truck in the garden, not very old. A younger man had stopped and chatted with him. The man laughed and waved when he left. Aksel Seier belonged here.
Johanne was hungry. It was unbearably hot in the car, even though she had parked in the shade of a large oak tree. She lowered the window slowly.
“You can’t park here, sweetie!”
A large pink angora sweater made the old lady look like cotton candy. She was smiling broadly in all the pink and Johanne nodded in apology. Then she put the car into drive and hoped that the gearshift would last another day. She noted that it was eleven o’clock exactly, on Tuesday, May 23.
For some reason, he noticed that it was five o’clock. Someone had hung an old station clock on the stable wall. The hour hand was broken and only a short stump pointed at what was probably the number five. Adam Stubo felt uneasy and double-checked the time.
“Here Amund. Come to Gramps.”
The boy was standing between the front legs of a brown horse. The animal bent its head and whinnied. Adam Stubo picked up his grandchild and put Amund astride the saddleless horse.
“You have to say good-bye to Sabra now. We have to go home and eat supper. You and I.”
“And Sabra.”
“No, not Sabra. Sabra lives here in the stable. There’s no room for her in Grandpa’s living room.”
“Bye bye, Sabra!”
Amund leaned forward and buried his face in the horse’s mane.
“Bye bye.”
The sense of unease would not leave him. It was nearly painful, a cold finger up his spine that grabbed him by the neck and made him stiffen. He pulled the boy close to him and started to walk toward the car. He felt uncomfortable as he strapped Amund into his car seat. In the old days, before the accident, he thought he was psychic, even though he had never really believed in things like that. But he still liked it when others noticed that there was something, a sensitivity, that made him special. Every now and then he would feel freezing waves washing over his body that made him look at the clock, note the time. He had found it useful before. Now he felt ashamed.
“Get a grip,” he mumbled to himself, and put the car in gear.
NINETEEN
It later transpired that no one actually noticed Sarah Baardsen on the bus. It was in the middle of rush hour and people were squeezed together like sardines. All the seats were taken. There were lots of children on the bus, most of them with adults. The only thing that was clear after more than forty witnesses had been interviewed was that Sarah was put on the No. 20 bus at five to five, as she was every Tuesday. Her mother’s statement was supported by two colleagues who had waited for her while she waved the girl off. Sarah was eight years old, and for over a year had been taking the bus on her own to see her grandmother in Toyen. It wasn’t a long journey, barely a quarter of an hour. Sarah was described as a sensible and independent girl, and although the mother was distraught that she hadn’t gone with her, no one was likely to blame the single mother for letting an eight-year-old take the bus alone.
So it was clear that Sarah was put on the bus and it was equally clear that she never arrived at her destination. Her grandmother was waiting for her at the usual bus stop. Sarah knew perfectly well where it was and usually jumped down into her grandmother’s arms as soon as the doors opened. This time she didn’t get off. Her grandmother had the presence of mind to hold the bus. Slowly she went through it twice herself, ignoring the irritated bus driver. Sarah was nowhere to be seen.
A couple of people thought they had seen the girl get off at Carl Berner. They were absolutely certain that she had a blue hat on. They had been standing by the back doors and were surprised to see such a young girl alone on the full bus.
Sarah was not wearing a hat.
An elderly lady said she had specifically noticed a little girl of around six with a grown man. The girl had blond hair and was carrying a rag doll. She was crying so much, said the lady. The man seemed to be angry with her. A gang of teenagers said that the bus had been full of shouting and screaming kids. An IT guru with a degree of celebrity that he seemed to think obviously made him a more reliable witness claimed to have seen a girl with a Coke bottle sitting on her own at the front of the bus. She suddenly got up and off the bus without any adults, as if she’d seen something unexpected at the bus stop by the Munch Museum.
Sarah had dark hair and was not carrying a Coke bottle. She had never owned a rag doll, and in any case was eight and big for her age.
