'Albertine was asleep,' said Kristiane. 'And I wanted to find you, Mum.'

Adam hardly dared breathe.

'I had to hide from all the people, because I didn't want to go to bed without you. And then suddenly I came to a door that was open. There were some stairs. I went down the stairs, because I thought you might have been there, and at least there was n.o.body else around. It was so quiet when I got to the bottom. It was really a cellar, and it wasn't at all posh. And then the lady was standing at the top of the stairs. "h.e.l.lo," said the lady.'

Kristiane was wearing new pyjamas. They were too big and the sleeves came down over her hands. She started tugging at them.

'I think I'd better go to sleep,' she said.

'What did you do when the lady said h.e.l.lo?' Johanne asked with a smile.

'I think I'd better go to sleep. Dam-di-rum-ram.'

'Come over here and be my little girl.' Adam turned to her at last and gave her a little wave.

'I'm Daddy's girl,' she said. 'And actually, I'm not a girl any more. I'm a young woman. That's what Daddy says.'

'You can be my girl and Daddy's girl,' Adam said with a laugh. 'You always will be. However old you are. Haven't you heard Grandpa calling Mum his little girl?'

'Grandpa calls all women his little girl. It's one of his bad habits. That's what Granny says.'

'Come here,' Johanne whispered. 'Come to Mum.'

Kristiane walked hesitantly across the floor.

'She called to me,' she said, settling down on the sofa between them. 'She didn't know my name, because of course she didn't know me. She just called out "Come here" and then she smiled.'

'And what happened next?' said Johanne.

'Adam,' Kristiane said in a serious tone of voice. 'You must weigh ...'

She thought quickly.

'About 230 per cent more than me.'

'I think that's exactly what I weigh,' replied Adam, with an embarra.s.sed glance in Johanne's direction. 'But I kind of wanted to keep that as my little secret.'

'I weigh thirty-one kilos, Mum. So you can work it out.'

'I'd rather hear what happened, sweetheart.'

'The lady called me and I went back up the stairs. She had really warm hands. But I'd lost one of my slippers.'

'Slippers?' said Adam. 'I thought you weren't wearing any-'

'Did the lady go back to fetch it?' Johanne quickly interrupted.

'Yes.'

'And where were you in the meantime?'

'Dam-di-rum-ram. Where's Sulamit?'

'Sulamit died, sweetheart. You know that.'

'The lady was dead, too. Dam-di-rum-ram.'

Adam held her close, resting his cheek on the top of her head.

'I'm so sorry I ran over Sulamit,' he whispered. 'But it was a long time ago.'

'Dam-di-rum-ram.'

She had drawn her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs as she slowly rocked from side to side. She b.u.mped into Johanne, paused for a moment, b.u.mped into Adam. Over and over again.

'Let's get you to bed,' Johanne said eventually.

'Dam-di-rum-ram.'

'Off we go.'

She got up and took her daughter's hand. Kristiane happily went with her. Adam reached out to her, but she didn't see him. He sat there listening to Johanne's patient small talk and Kristiane's strange chatter.

It struck him that realizing Johanne was right was almost worse than the fact that Kristiane had witnessed something traumatic. Overcome with fatigue, he sank back against the cushions.

He had believed what Johanne told him, but not what she thought it implied. Once upon a time he had cynically drawn her to him precisely because of her judgement. Because he needed it. He had drawn her into an investigation she really didn't want to get involved in by forcing her to imagine every parent's nightmare. Children were being kidnapped and murdered, and he was completely at a loss. It was Johanne's unique experiences with the FBI and her sharp eye for human behaviour that solved the case and saved a little girl's life. He had fallen in love with Johanne for many reasons, but whenever he thought back to the time after the dramatic search for the missing child, it was Johanne's ability to combine intellect and intuition, rationality and emotion that had attracted him with a power he had never experienced before.

Johanne was the perfect blend of sense and sensibility.

But this time so many difficult years later he just hadn't believed in her.

The feeling of shame made him close his eyes.

'Now do you believe me?'

Her tone wasn't aggressive. It wasn't even reproachful. On the contrary, she sounded relieved. It made him feel even smaller.

'I believed you all along,' he mumbled. 'I just thought that-'

'Let's forget it,' said Johanne, sitting down beside him. 'What do we do now?'

'I don't know. I have no idea. The best thing might be to wait. She talked to you on Monday, and to us just now. We should probably wait until she decides to tell us more.'

'There's no guarantee she ever will.'

'No. But do you want to put her through an interview?'

She placed one hand on his thigh and picked up his wine gla.s.s with the other.

'Not yet. Not unless it becomes absolutely necessary.'

'Then we're agreed.'

She felt a wave of tenderness for him that was unusual these days, a deep grat.i.tude for the fact that his immediate instinct was to protect his stepdaughter, even though she might have vital information in an ongoing murder enquiry.

'Thank you,' she said simply.

'Why are they here?' Adam said, so quietly that she almost didn't hear.

'What?'

'Why are they here?' he repeated. 'The 25'ers. Here. In Norway.'

She swirled the wine around the gla.s.s. The beat of Money, Money, Money thumped up through the floor from down below. For a moment she considered thumping back. If Kristiane didn't fall asleep properly now, it was going to be a long night.

'I don't know,' she said. 'But of course, they could be in other places as well.'

'No.'

He took the gla.s.s from her and had a sip.

'Interpol has no information on similar cases anywhere else in Europe. In the US, however, the FBI is working on a case where-'

'Six gay men have been murdered and it turns out there's a connection between all of them,' she finished off for him. 'And that particular case is a hard nut to crack.'

He laughed.

'Do you know everything that's going on in that b.l.o.o.d.y country?'

'America is not a b.l.o.o.d.y country. It's a wonderful, wonderful country, the USA.'

His laughter grew louder, positively hearty. He pulled her close. She was smiling, too. It was a long time since she'd heard him laugh like that.

'It could be just a coincidence, of course,' she said.

When he didn't reply, she added: 'But I don't believe that for a second.'

'Why not?' Adam asked. 'If they've decided to ... export their hatred, I suppose we're as good a country to start in as any. In fact, if you think about it ...'

He tried to get more comfortable.

'... perhaps we're better than any other country. We've got the most liberal laws in the world when it comes to gay rights, we've got-'

'Along with several other countries,' she broke in. 'And a number of states in the US. So they've got no real reason to come here, in fact. I just don't believe ...'

Adam was shifting about so much that she sat up and undid his belt.

'I love you however much you weigh,' she said. 'But it does look a little bit ridiculous when you start literally tightening your belt. Couldn't you perhaps buy yourself some bigger clothes, sweetheart?'

She could have sworn he was blushing. But he left the belt hanging open.

'I think they're here for a very definite reason,' she said.

'Which is?'

'If only we knew. But there's something.'

's.h.i.t,' said Adam, lumbering to his feet.

'What are you going to do?'

He mumbled something she didn't catch and headed towards the hallway. She could hear Super Trouper coming from below, and realized she was humming along. In order to get the enervating melody out of her head, she picked up a pen from the coffee table and took a newspaper out of the basket on the floor. She jotted down a few notes in the margin of the front page of Aftenposten. When she had finished she sat there brooding so intently that she didn't even notice Adam until he flopped down beside her. He was wearing generous pyjama bottoms and a big American football shirt.

'Look at this,' she said, tapping the paper with her pen.

'I can't make head or tail of it,' he said, wrinkling his nose at her incomprehensible scrawl.

'The methods,' she said succinctly.

'Yes?'

'Sophie Eklund was killed after someone sabotaged her car. So there was an attempt to cover up a murder.'

'Yes ...'

'Niclas Winter was written off as the victim of an overdose. Which he was to be fair but all the indications are that he was killed with curacit. In other words, another attempt to cover up a murder.'

'How do you actually inject curacit into an adult, relatively healthy man?' Adam muttered, still trying to decipher what she had written down. 'I would have fought like the devil.'

'The first thing that occurs to me is that he might have been fooled into thinking it was something else. Heroin, for example.'

'Yes ...'

'Or he was taken by surprise. Curacit works incredibly fast. If you inject into the mouth where there are a lot of blood vessels, it's only a matter of seconds before the effect kicks in.'

'Into the mouth? But you can't force someone to open wide so you can inject a little curacit, surely?'

'I'm afraid we'll never know the answer to that. He's been cremated. But listen to me, Adam. Pay attention. The point is there was an attempt to cover up the next two murders, exactly like the ones I've just mentioned.'

She chewed her pen.

'Runar Hansen, poor soul n.o.body really bothered too much about him. Drug addicts who get beaten up and die as a result of their injuries don't attract much attention these days. And as far as Hawre Ghani is concerned, he was thrown in the water and was virtually unrecognizable by the time they pulled him out. To be perfectly honest, I think his case would have ended up well down the pile at police headquarters if Silje Srensen hadn't ... felt something for the boy.'

'Where are you going with this, Johanne?'

'I want my own wine. Can't you go and get me a gla.s.s?'

He got up without a word.