nursery. Broken bones. Bruises. Admittedly, he was clumsy at nursery too, but most of his injuries were sustained at home. There was the suggestion of ADHD when a pre-school teacher asked for the boy to be checked out. Before this process could begin, the family had moved. Martin started school in a small community in Ostfold. After only six months he was admitted to hospital with stomach pains, which no one could get to the bottom of. During the spring term in his first year the family moved again, after one of the teachers called round unannounced and found the boy locked in a bike shed, his clothing completely inadequate. The teacher informed the authorities, but before the case reached the top of the pile, the family had moved yet again. Martin’s life continued in this way until he was admitted to Ulleval Hospital at the age of eleven with a fractured skull. Fortunately, they had managed to save his life, but actually giving him any kind of life proved more difficult. Since then the boy had been in and out of various institutions and foster homes. The last time he had run away was at Christmas, from a residential youth care unit where he had been placed by the court.
The case against his parents was dropped due to lack of evidence.
‘Ffksk,’ mumbled Silje, looking up again.
‘What?’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ she clarified.
‘You could say that,’ agreed Knut Bork, leading her to an interview room. ‘He’s in here.’
He took out a key and inserted it in the lock.
‘We’re not really allowed to lock him in,’ he said, his voice subdued. ‘At least not without supervision. But this kid would have been long gone if I’d left the door open for one second. He tried to do a runner three times while we were bringing him in from the unit.’
‘Has he been there since last Monday?’
‘Yes, under supervision. He hasn’t been alone for more than five minutes.’
The door opened.
Martin Setre didn’t even look up. He was rocking back and forth on a chair, one foot on the table. The dark boot lay in a small lake of melted snow. The back of the chair was rhythmically hitting the wall, and had already started to leave a mark.
‘Pack that in,’ said Knut Bork. ‘Right now. This is DI Silje Sorensen. She wants to talk to you.’
The boy still didn’t look up. His fingers were playing with a snuff tin, but it didn’t look as if he had anything under his lip. However, the herpes infection was considerably worse.
‘Hi,’ said Silje, moving so that she was opposite him. ‘You can say hello to me if you like.’
She sat down.
‘I understand,’ she said, and started to laugh.
This time the boy did look up, but without meeting her eyes.
‘What the fuck are you laughing at?’
‘Not at you. At Knut here.’
She nodded in the direction of her younger colleague, who raised his eyebrows as high as he could before adopting the same indifferent expression once again. He had turned the chair around and was leaning over the back with his arms folded, a thin investigation file dangling from one hand.
‘You see,’ said Silje, ‘when he showed me your papers we made a bet. I bet 100 kronor that you would be rocking back and forward on the chair, fiddling with a snuff tin, and that you’d refuse to speak. Then I bet another hundred that you wouldn’t look me in the eye for the first quarter of an hour. It looks as though I’m going to be rich. That’s why I’m laughing.’
She laughed again.
The boy took his foot off the table, let the legs of the chair crash to the floor and stared her straight in the eye.
‘It hasn’t been quarter of an hour yet,’ he said. ‘You lost.’
‘Only partly. It’s 1-1 between Knut and me. What the score will be between you and me remains to be seen.’
A faint knock on the door made the boy glance in that direction.
‘Come in,’ Knut Bork called loudly, and the door opened.
A woman in her thirties blundered in, heavily overweight and panting, with layers of flapping clothes.
‘Sorry I’m a few minutes late,’ she said. ‘Busy day. I’m Andrea Solli, the social worker.’
She addressed her last remark to Martin and held out her hand. He responded hesitantly with a limp handshake. He didn’t get up.
‘Well, that’s the formalities out of the way,’ said Andrea Solli, sitting down on the remaining chair.
The boy closed his eyes and pretended to yawn. Andrea Solli was Number 62 in the series of social workers, experts, solicitors and lay judges who had played some part in Martin’s life. The very first one had got him to talk. He had told her everything, concluding with an account of how his father had smashed his head against a toilet until he no longer knew whether he was alive or not.
She had said she believed him, and that everything would be all right.
Nothing had ever been all right, and a long time ago he had stopped believing a single word they said.
‘So you were brought in three days ago,’ said Silje Sorensen. ‘For possession of three and a half grams of hash, it says here. To be perfectly honest, I’m not remotely interested in that. Nor am I particularly interested in your career as a prostitute. Except for…’
Knut Bork handed her a document from his file.
‘… this. It’s a report from when you were brought in on 21 November last year.’
‘What? Are you going to start poking around in ancient history?’
Martin squirmed on his chair.
‘It’s six weeks ago, Martin. The police don’t really regard that as ancient history. But actually, it’s not you I’m interested in this time.’
The boy was leaning forward, batting the snuff tin between his hands across the surface of the desk like an ice-hockey puck.
‘It’s Hawre. Hawre Ghani. You know him, don’t you?’
The puck was travelling faster between his hands.
‘Come on, Martin. You were brought in together. It’s clear from the report that you knew one another. I just want-’
‘Haven’t seen Hawre for ages,’ the boy said sullenly.
‘No. I believe you.’
‘Don’t know anything about Hawre,’ Martin muttered.
‘Were you friends?’
The boy pulled a face.
‘Does that mean yes or no?’
‘It’s not exactly easy to make friends when you live like I do. I mean, you never get to live in the same place for longer than a few weeks!’
‘You’re the one who takes off,’ the social worker interrupted. ‘I realize it’s very difficult for you, but it’s not easy to create-’
‘You can sort all that out later,’ Silje broke in. ‘I’m asking you again, Martin. Did you know Hawre well?’
He carried on playing table hockey without answering.
‘You’re blushing. Were you together?’
‘What?’
The sore in his nose had started to bleed. A thin trickle of red zigzagged down the crusty yellow scab covering the area between his left nostril and his upper lip.
‘Me and… Hawre? He isn’t even gay, not really. He just needs the money!’
‘But you are?’
‘What?’
‘Gay.’
‘You’ve no fucking right to ask me that.’
A siren started howling in the courtyard at the back. Two magpies were sitting on the window ledge outside, staring at them with coal-black eyes and taking no notice of the noise.
