'Ffksk,' mumbled Silje, looking up again.

'What?'

'For f.u.c.k'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 Srensen. 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 h.e.l.lo 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 f.u.c.k 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 Srensen. '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 prost.i.tute. Except for ...'

Knut Bork handed her a doc.u.ment 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 f.u.c.king 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.

Martin's eyes narrowed, and his hands finally stopped moving.

'But since you ask, the answer is yes. It's nothing to be ashamed of.'

Defiance shone from every inch of his tense body, and this time he was the one holding her gaze.

'I couldn't agree more,' said Silje.

If the boy had been ten kilos heavier, and if the sore on his face had healed, he might have been quite good-looking. Unfortunately his teeth were bad, which was rare for Norwegian children in 2009. When he spoke she could see a grey film of tartar, which still didn't hide a couple of botched fillings in his front teeth. But his eyes were large and blue, and the long eyelashes curled upwards like a small child's.

'Can't you get rid of them?' he said.

'Who?'

Martin pointed at the woman and Knut Bork.

'I'm quite happy to leave,' said Bork. 'But the social worker has to stay. We're not allowed to question you unless somebody from social services is present.'

Without any further discussion he got to his feet. He placed the file next to the report in front of Silje Srensen, and pushed his chair under the table.

'Ring me when you've finished,' he said. 'I'll be in my office.'

As the door closed behind him, Martin stared nastily at Andrea Solli.

'I don't need any help from social services,' he said. 'You can go as well.'

Silje got in first.

'Out of the question,' she said firmly. 'Forget it. Tell me about you and Hawre instead.'

Martin had started to lick the sore. The blood from his nose turned pink as it mixed with his saliva, and suddenly a piece of the scab came away.

'f.u.c.k,' he yelled, grabbing at his mouth.

Blood was pouring down his face, and Andrea Solli dug out a bundle of Kleenex from her capacious handbag. Martin took three and pressed them against the sore.

'Me and Hawre weren't together,' he said, sounding agitated and revealing that his voice hadn't completely broken yet. 'We were just mates.'

'Mates usually have some idea where their mates are,' said Silje.

The boy didn't reply. His eyes were wet, but Silje didn't know if it was because of the turn the conversation had taken or his sore lip. She wasn't sure how to proceed. To gain time she opened a half-litre bottle of mineral water and poured three gla.s.ses without asking if anyone would like some.

'Hawre's dead,' she said.

At that moment the magpies took off from the window ledge, shouting hoa.r.s.ely as they disappeared into the darkness over the city. It had stopped snowing at last. It was quarter past four in the afternoon. From the corridor they could hear the rapid footsteps of people hurrying to get home.

'That's what I thought,' whispered Martin.

He dropped the blood-stained tissues on the floor, put his arms on the table and hid his face.

'That's what I thought,' he sobbed again.

'When did you last see him, Martin?'

Silje Srensen really wanted to put her arms around him. Hold him. Comfort him, as if there were any way of comforting a boy who wasn't even sixteen years old and had lost any chance of a decent life long ago.

'When did you last see him?' she repeated.

'I don't remember,' he wept.

'This is really important, Martin. Hawre was murdered.'

The sobs broke off. 'Murdered?'

His voice sounded half-suffocated as he lay slumped over the table.

'Yes. And that's why it's really, really important that you try to remember.'

'Do you think I murdered Hawre?'

He wasn't even angry. Or accusing. Martin Setre simply took it for granted that everybody a.s.sumed he was guilty of everything.

'No, absolutely not. I don't believe for one moment that you murdered your friend.'

'Good,' he snivelled, slowly sitting up.