I drove through Fyllingsdalen, via Krohnegården, and parked forty metres from the gate to their house.

I looked at my watch. It was five minutes past five.

If Sissel was a normal teenager she would have finished her homework long ago, read a back issue of Romantikk magazine, played a Wham! LP and arranged to meet a girlfriend or perhaps even a…

She was normal. I hadn’t been waiting for more than twenty minutes before she came dashing down the garden path, at the same speed as this morning, wearing the same puffer jacket and the same jeans.

I moved forward to the gate, rolled down the window, smiled my teenager smile and said: ‘Can I drive you anywhere?’

She came to an abrupt halt, her hand on the garden gate and a suspicious expression on her little face. ‘Who are you? I don’t take lifts from…’

‘Strangers, I know. You’re quite right to be cautious, but don’t you recognise me? I visited your mother this morning. You were rushing past on your way to school. Did you get there on time?’

She giggled childishly. ‘Just.’

‘My name’s Varg Veum. I knew your father. In the old days. Where are you going?’

She was still regarding me with suspicion. ‘I … to the church. Confirmation class.’

I opened the door. ‘Then jump in. I know Berge Brevik well too.’

That appeared to clinch it. She got into the car, sat close to the door and hesitated for a moment before putting on her seat belt.

I smiled at her reassuringly. ‘OK? Do you like going to the classes?’

She nodded.242

‘Aren’t you a year late?’

Suddenly her pointed face wore a precocious expression. ‘I wasn’t ready for it last year. You have to want to do it, don’t you.’

I nodded. ‘That sounds sensible.’

We waited at the lights by Carl Konows gate. On green I turned left, passed Damsgård Manor and took a right down to the old centre of Laksevåg.

‘Don’t go all the way to the church,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anyone to see us.’

I pulled into the kerb, put the gearstick into neutral, released my seat belt and said: ‘Actually I wanted to talk to your sister.’

‘Ruth?’

‘Mhm. Do you know where she is? Your mother didn’t know…’

‘That’s because she’s ashamed.’

‘Of Ruth?’

She nodded her head vigorously. ‘But Ruth’s always kept in touch with me. I’m in constant contact, even if things are bad.’

‘Bad?’

She was serious now and looked at me with adult eyes. ‘Ruth’s a drug addict. Right now she’s trying to kick the habit. She’s at some kind of rehab centre, a collective, somewhere in Lindås.’

‘OK. So she’s been out of work?’

‘She started studying, but then…’ She shrugged. ‘Ruth moved from home six or seven years ago, when she was seventeen. She met a guy who was much older than her…’

‘What was his name?’

She shrugged. ‘No idea. I was no more than eight or nine. No one told me anything. It was only afterwards that Ruth has…’