finding out!’
‘But what would you…? How could you use an anonymous photograph to…?’
‘We have huge databases. Comprehensive computer programs. And if all the technology in the world wasn’t enough, then…’
The foot on the brake pedal was going to sleep, so he put the car in first gear and switched off the engine.
‘If I had to knock on every door in Bergen myself, if I had to put up posters with my own hands all over the country, ring round every single TV station and newspaper, I would find her. You can rest assured of that.’
Lukas nodded.
‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what I thought you’d say. Can I go now? My car’s parked just up the road.’
Adam’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Lukas.
‘Yes. But don’t forget what I’ve said to you today. From now on it’s zero tolerance as far as I’m concerned when it comes to keeping secrets. OK?’
‘OK,’ Lukas nodded, opening the door. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
Once outside the car, he turned and leaned in.
‘Thank you for not saying anything to my father,’ he said.
‘No problem,’ said Adam, waving as he started the engine, indicated and pulled away.
Lukas scurried to his own car, keeping one hand on his stomach where he could feel the outline of a photograph he had no intention of sharing with anyone.
Not yet, anyway.
‘School isn’t over yet,’ said Kristiane for at least the fiftieth time when they eventually got home. ‘School isn’t over yet.’
‘No,’ Johanne said calmly. ‘But I want to talk to you about something really important, sweetheart. That’s why I had to pick you up early today.’
‘School isn’t over yet,’ Kristiane repeated, walking up the stairs like a mechanical doll. ‘School finishes at four o’clock, and then I’m going to Daddy’s. I’m staying at Daddy’s today. School finishes at four o’clock.’
Johanne followed her without saying any more. Only when they were in the living room did she spread her hands encouragingly and confess: ‘We’re going to have a duvet day today, Kristiane! Just the two of us! Would you like some hot chocolate with whipped cream?’
‘Dam-di-rum-ram,’ said Kristiane as she slowly began rocking from side to side on the sofa.
Johanne went over to her daughter and sat down beside her. She pulled Kristiane’s sweater and vest out of the waistband of her trousers and allowed her fingers to dance gently over her daughter’s slender young back. Kristiane smiled and lay down across her knee. They sat there for several minutes until Kristiane began to sing a folk song.
‘That’s a lovely song,’ whispered Johanne.
Kristiane stopped singing.
‘A lovely spring song,’ Johanne said. ‘A spring song in January. What a clever girl you are.’
‘If you sing about the spring, it will come.’
Kristiane’s laughter was as fragile as glass. Johanne ran her forefinger along the contours of her spine, all the way down from the nape of her neck.
‘That tickles,’ Kristiane smiled.
‘Do it again.’ ‘Do you remember Aunt Marie’s wedding?’
‘Of course. Where’s Sulamit, anyway?’
‘Sulamit was worn out, sweetheart. You remember that, don’t you?’
When she was one year old, Kristiane had been given a little red fire engine. She decided it was actually a cat, and called it Sulamit. It had been her faithful companion for more than eight years. The wheels had fallen off one by one, the colours had faded. The ladder on the roof was long gone. The eyes on the headlights were blind, and little Sulamit looked like neither a fire engine nor a cat when Adam reversed over it by mistake on the drive one day.
Kristiane had been inconsolable.
‘Sulamit was a wonderful cat,’ she said now. ‘Can I have another cat, Mum?’
‘But we’ve got Jack,’ said Johanne. ‘He’s not all that keen on cats, as you well know.’
‘I am the invisible child,’ said Kristiane.
Johanne’s fingers hovered like butterflies over the thin skin on her back.
‘Sometimes no one can see me.’
‘When?’ whispered Johanne.
‘Sulamit, sulamat, sulatullamit on the mat.’
‘Was it at Marie’s wedding that no one could see you?’
‘More. Tickle more, Mum.’
‘Did you see anyone? Even if they couldn’t see you?’
Johanne was desperately trying to remember what Kristiane had actually said that night at the hotel, when she herself had been terrified, furious and in no state to take in anything at all.
‘A lady was murdered there,’ said Kristiane, suddenly sitting up next to her mother. ‘Marianne Kleive. Nursery school teacher. Married to the noted award-winning documentary film-maker Synnove Hessel! Women can marry each other in Norway. So can men.’
Her voice had suddenly reverted to a monotonous chant.
‘You read too many newspapers,’ smiled Johanne, putting her arm around her daughter and drawing her close.
‘Dearly loved, sadly missed.’
‘Have you started reading the death notices?’
‘A cross means the dead person was a Christian. A Star of David means the deceased was Jewish. What does the bird mean, Mum?’
At last Kristiane’s eyes met her mother’s gaze for a fleeting moment.
‘That you hope the dead person will rest in peace,’ Johanne whispered.
‘I want a bird in my death notice.’
‘You’re not going to die.’
‘I’m going to die one day.’
‘We’re all going to die one day.’
‘You too, Mum.’
‘Yes, me too. But not for a long time.’
‘You can’t know that.’
Silence. They were only whispering, sitting close together on the sofa, Johanne with her arm around the slender fourteen-year-old like a safety belt as the daylight poured in across the living-room floor, almost dazzling them. She could feel the budding breasts, the unavoidable signs that Kristiane, too, would become an adult, even if puberty had come late.
‘No,’ Johanne said eventually. ‘I can’t know that. But I don’t think it will happen for a long time. I’m healthy, Kristiane, and not so very old. Have you ever seen a dead person?’
‘You’ll die before me, Mum.’
‘I hope I do. No parent wants their child to die before them.’
‘Who will look after me when you die?’
Johanne had been asking herself that same question, over and over again, ever since Kristiane was just a few hours old, and Johanne was the only one who realized there was something wrong with her child.
