'Stay over with you? Great!'

In her mind's eye she could see a glint in those dark blue eyes that narrowed to slits in his always unshaven face when he smiled that crooked, sweet smile that she had once been so in love with.

'I'll be there in half an hour,' he said. 'Do you want me to pick up any shopping while we're here?'

'No thanks. Just bring yourselves. Just come.'

She ended the call, overwhelmed by an immense weariness. She rested her arms on the roof of the car. The metal was so cold that her skin contracted. Perhaps she could tell Isak about the man in the garden on Christmas Day. If she explained that her fear hadn't come from nowhere, that she had a good reason to be anxious, that the man had known Kristiane's name although neither of the children knew him, if she ...

No.

Slowly she straightened up and dried her tears with the back of her hand.

'Out you come,' she said, bending down to Ragnhild with a smile. 'We're not going to Sandvika after all. Isak and Kristiane are coming here instead.'

'But we were going to watch a film and pretend we were at the cinema!' Ragnhild complained loudly. 'Just you and me!'

'Well, we can do that with the others. It'll be brilliant. Come on, out you get.'

Raghnild slid reluctantly from her child seat and climbed out of the car. As they walked back across the gravel, she suddenly stopped and put her hands on her hips.

'Mummy,' she said severely. 'First of all we were in a big hurry to get to Storvika Sandsenter. Now we're going back inside. We were going to pretend we were at the cinema, just you and me, and now suddenly Isak and Kristiane are coming. Daddy's quite right.'

'About what?' said Johanne with a smile, stroking her youngest daughter's hair.

'Sometimes you just can't make up your mind. But you're still the best mummy in the world. The very best supermummy in the whole wide world, with bells on.'

Detective Inspector Silje Srensen of the violent crime division in Oslo had drunk two cups of hot chocolate with whipped cream and was feeling sick.

The photographs in front of her didn't help.

This year Christmas Eve had fallen on a weekday, which was perfect for those who wanted to have the longest possible time off work. The twenty-third of December, when some people also held celebrations, was on a Tuesday, so most people had also taken the Monday off, even though it was a normal working day, and stayed away on Tuesday. Christmas Day and Boxing Day were bank holidays anyway, and today, the day after Boxing Day, it was Sat.u.r.day, and therefore a working day for those within the public sector, but for the less conscientious Christmas 2008 was an opportunity to take two weeks off work, since there was no point in going in when New Year's Eve and New Year's Day fell in the middle of the following week.

Norway was working at a quarter speed, but not Silje Srensen.

The sight of her full in-tray had put her in a foul mood. In the end it was easy to convince the family it would be best for all of them if she put in an extra day at work.

Or perhaps it was the thought of Hawre Ghani that distracted her, whatever she tried to do.

She flicked quickly through the photographs of the body, took out the picture of the boy when he was alive, plus a new doc.u.ment, and closed the file.

On the afternoon of Christmas Day she had phoned DCI Harald Bull, as he had requested. He wasn't all that interested in discussing work in the middle of the holiday. When he wrote 'as soon as possible', he meant 5 January. Despite the fact that the overtime budget had been blown long ago, they agreed to give DC Knut Bork the job of checking the Kurdish asylum seeker's background. Bork was young, single and ambitious, and Silje Srensen was impressed by the report he had completed that morning and left in her office.

She glanced through the pages.

Hawre Ghani had come to Norway eighteen months ago, allegedly at the age of fifteen. No parents. Since he had no ID papers, the Norwegian authorities quickly became suspicious of his age.

Despite doubts about the boy's date of birth, he was placed in an asylum centre in Ringebu. There were several others like him in the centre, asylum seekers who were alone and under the age of eighteen. He ran away after three days. Since then he had been more or less permanently on the run, apart from a few days in custody every time the street-smart youngster wasn't quite smart enough.

A year ago he turned to prost.i.tution.

According to the report he sold himself at a high price, often to just about anybody. On at least one occasion Hawre Ghani had robbed a punter, something which had been discovered by chance. He had stolen a pair of Nike Shocks from Sportshuset in Storo. A security guard had overpowered him, got him down on the floor and sat on him until the police arrived three quarters of an hour later. When he was searched they found a beige Mont Blanc wallet containing credit cards, papers and receipts bearing the name of a well-known male sports journalist. He wasn't interested in pressing charges, DC Bork's report stated matter-of-factly, but several colleagues who had some knowledge of prost.i.tution were able to confirm that both the boy and the robbery victim were known to them.

On one occasion an attempt had been made to link Hawre up with a Kurd from northern Iraq who had a temporary residence permit, but without any right to bring in his family. The man, who had been allowed to stay on in Norway for more than ten years and spoke fluent Norwegian, had been working part-time as a youth leader in Gamlebyn. So far his projects working with difficult refugee children had been very successful. Things didn't go so well with Hawre. After three weeks the boy had persuaded four mates from the club to help him break into some bas.e.m.e.nt offices; they also tried to empty an ATM with a crowbar, and stole and smashed up a four-year-old Audi TT.

Silje Srensen stared at the picture of the immature young man with the big nose. His lips looked as if they belonged to a ten-year-old. His skin was smooth.

Perhaps she was naive.

Of course she was naive, even after all these years in the force, where her illusions burst like bubbles as she rose through the ranks.

But this boy was young. Of course it was impossible to say whether he was fifteen or seventeen, but the photograph had been taken after his arrival in Norway, and she could swear that at that point it would be quite some time before he came of age.

However, that didn't matter now.

Slowly she put the photograph down right on the edge of the desk. It would stay there until she had solved this case. If it was true that someone had taken Hawre Ghani's life as the information gathered so far indicated then she was going to find out who that person was.

Hawre Ghani was dead, and n.o.body had bothered about him while he was alive.

But at least someone was going to bother about his death.

'Don't bother about me,' said Adam Stubo, waving the man away. 'I've already had three cups of coffee today, and any more would do me no good at all.'

Lukas Lysgaard shrugged his shoulders and sat down on one of the yellow wing chairs. His father's. Adam still thought it best not to sit on Eva Karin's, and pulled out the same dining chair as before.

'Have you got any further?' asked Lukas, his voice suggesting a lack of interest.

'How's the headache?' said Adam.

The young man shrugged his shoulders again, then scratched his hair and screwed up his eyes.

'Better now. It comes and goes.'

'That's the way it is with migraine, or so I've heard.'

A grandfather clock slowly struck twice. Adam withstood the temptation to check the time against his own watch; he was sure it was after two. He felt a slight draught on the back of his neck, as if a window was open. There was a smell of bacon, and something else he couldn't identify.

'Not much new information to report, I'm afraid.'

He leaned forward on his chair and rested his elbows on his knees.

'Quite a lot of material has been sent away for more detailed a.n.a.lysis. It seems highly likely that we will find biological traces at the scene of the crime. Since it was the police who actually found her, and very soon after the murder took place as far as we can tell, we hope we've secured the evidence to the best of our ability.'

'But you don't know who did it?'

Adam realized he was raising his eyebrows.

'No, of course not. We still have to-'

'The newspapers are saying it was random violence. They say they have sources inside the police who claim they're hunting a lunatic. One of those "ticking time bombs"-'

His fingers drew quotation marks in the air.

'-that the psychiatrists let out far too soon. Could be an asylum seeker. Or a Somali. That type.'

'It is, of course, possible that we're looking for someone who is mentally ill. Anything is possible. But at this stage of the investigation it's important not to get locked in to one particular theory.'

'But if that patrol was on the scene so quickly, the killer can't have got far. I read in the paper today that it was only five or ten minutes from the time she died until she was found. There can't be that many people to choose from on Christmas Eve. People who are out so late at night, I mean.'

He clearly regretted his words as soon as they were out of his mouth, and grabbed a gla.s.s containing yellow liquid, which Adam a.s.sumed was orange juice.

'No,' Adam said. 'Your mother, for example.'

'Listen to me,' said Lukas, emptying the gla.s.s before he went on. 'I understand your point of view, obviously. I'd give anything in the world to know what my mother was doing out so late on Christmas Eve. But I don't know, OK? I don't know! We my wife and I and our three children spend alternate Christmases with her parents and with mine. This year my in-laws came to us. My mother and father were alone. I've asked my father of course I have, G.o.d knows ...'

He pulled a face.

'I've asked him, and he refuses to give me an answer.'

'I understand,' Adam said kindly. 'I do understand. That's why I'd like to ask you a few questions about this particular issue.'

Lukas spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. 'Carry on.'

'Did your mother enjoy walking?'

'What?'

'Did she like going for walks?'

'Doesn't everybody like ... ? Yes. Yes, I suppose she did.'

'At night? I mean, lots of people are in the habit of going out for a breath of fresh air before they go to bed. Perhaps your mother liked to do that?'

For the first time since Adam met Lukas Lysgaard three days ago, the man actually seemed to be giving a question some thought.

'The thing is, it's many years since I lived at home,' he said eventually. 'I had ... We had our children when we were only twenty, my wife and I. We got married the same summer we finished our education, and ...'

He fell silent and a smile pa.s.sed fleetingly over his tear-stained face.

'That was early,' said Adam. 'I didn't think that kind of thing happened these days.'

'My mother and father particularly my father were dead against the idea of us moving in together without being married. As we were convinced that ... But you asked if my mother was in the habit of going out at night.'

Adam gave a small nod and took his notepad out of his breast pocket as discreetly as he could.

'She was, actually. At least when I lived at home. When she was a priest she often visited her parishioners outside normal working hours. She was the kind of priest who made a point of going to see people, my mother. She sometimes went out in the evening and didn't get back until after I'd gone to sleep. But I've never known her visit anyone on Christmas Eve.'

He shrugged his shoulders.

'It was actually very good of her to visit people who needed her at night. She was afraid of the dark.'

'Afraid of the dark?' Adam repeated. 'Right. But she liked going out for walks at night? Here in Bergen, I mean. After you moved back?'

'No ... Well ... When my mother was appointed bishop I was an adult. I'm not sure she did that many home visits these days. As a bishop, I mean.'

He sighed heavily and picked up the gla.s.s. When he discovered it was empty he sat there twirling it around in his hands. His left knee was shaking as if he had some kind of nervous tic.

'To be honest, when I was young I didn't know what they did in the evenings. Hadn't a clue.'

This time the smile was genuine.

'I suppose I was like most teenagers. Tested the boundaries. Even had girlfriends. I've never really thought about it, but maybe my mother was in the habit of going for a walk a little while before bedtime. In Stavanger as well. But when I'm here with my family, of course she doesn't go out.'

'You live in Os, don't you?'

'Yes. It's only about half an hour from here. Except at rush hour. Then it can take for ever. But we often come to see them. And they come to us. But she never goes for any of those late-night walks when they visit us or when we're here, so-'

'Sorry to interrupt, but do you stay the night? When you come here?'

'From time to time. Not usually. The children often stay over, of course. Mum and Dad are so good with them. We always stay over on Christmas Eve or other special occasions. We like to have a drink then.'

'Your parents aren't teetotal?'

'Oh no. Not at all.'

'What do you mean by "not at all"?'

'What? What do I mean? They like a gla.s.s of red wine with their meal. My father likes a whisky on special occasions. They're perfectly normal people, in other words.'

'Did your mother ever drink before she went off on one of her walks?'

Lukas Lysgaard sighed demonstratively.

'Listen to me,' he said crossly. 'I'm telling you I'm not sure. In some ways I have a feeling that my mother liked to go for a walk at night. But at the same time I know she was afraid of the dark. Really afraid of the dark. Everybody teased her about her phobia, because she of all people should have felt secure in the presence of G.o.d. And His presence is with us all the time ...'

He made his last comment with a small grimace as he leaned back in the chair and put down the empty gla.s.s.

'Could I have a look around?' Adam asked.

'Er ... yes ... I mean no ... My father is with my family, and I don't think it's appropriate for you to be poking around among his things when he hasn't given his permission.'

'I won't poke around,' Adam smiled, holding up his hands. 'Definitely not. I just want to take a superficial look. As I've mentioned several times already, it's important for me to gain the clearest possible impression of the victims in the cases I investigate. That's why I'm here. In Bergen, I mean. I want to try and get a clearer picture of your mother. Seeing her home helps a little. That should be OK, shouldn't it?'

Once again Lukas shrugged his shoulders. Adam took this as a sign of agreement, and stood up. As he slipped his notepad in his pocket, he asked Lukas to show him around. 'So that I don't make a fool of myself,' he said with a smile. 'Like last time.'