Maybe there’s someone out there right now, worrying about him? Someone who wonders where he is and why he hasn’t been in touch. Other relatives, perhaps. Friends, or even better, a boyfriend. Someone she could find in his call list and texts.

Hopefully the phone survived the crash, she thinks to herself. Granted, it didn’t turn on, but the screen seemed to be in one piece.

I’m going to make it my fucking mission to find someone who cares.

Chapter 46

46

‘I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t know. Billy was always pretty secretive.’

Eirik repeats almost verbatim what Kore said before handing the phone to his boyfriend.

‘How did you first get to know him?’

‘I didn’t really know him. He used to hang out in the same bars as us, but it’s been years since I had the energy to go out at night.’

‘But surely you know at least something about the guy?’

‘I know he used to work as a waiter at a café, but that his real dream was being a flight attendant or working with fashion or media. Like everyone else. He was fun to talk to, but very naïve. I don’t think he could have been more than seventeen at the time, so no wonder, really. I remember him telling me his parents weren’t OK with him being gay, and that he had moved out a few years earlier. Or maybe someone else told me that. People gossiped a lot.’

‘No boyfriend? Or other friends you remember?’

‘No, if anything he seemed kind of lonely and contact-seeking. I remember feeling sorry for him and thinking he was the type to get himself into trouble.’

‘How so?’

‘Because he was so young and rootless. Practically made to fall in with the wrong men.’

‘So how come you recommended him for a job at KGB?’

‘Pure happenstance, actually. I hadn’t seen Billy in years when we bumped into each other at the market hall last spring. He told me he’d been working as a waiter at some of the better restaurants in town and then as a receptionist on the ferries, but that the flight attendant thing had come to nothing. Some kind of back problem that apparently made it hard to work as a waiter, too. And around that time, Kore had mentioned that they needed someone in the studio who could take care of the practical side of things and receive visitors. I gave Billy Kore’s number and then I heard he got the job. And that he was good at it.’

‘But you didn’t see him socially after that?’