Again she sighed. ‘We’re a kind of rest home. We make young addicts an offer. They can come here, live in a free, independent, drugs-free environment, receive the treatment we can offer within our financial means – i.e., a doctor, psychologist, social worker – and hopefully get back on an even keel. We run the farm here, growing mostly vegetables and potatoes, and we have a few animals, plus the possibility of fishing in the fjord and doing various courses. In brief we try to activate them, get them to work with their bodies, minds, make them think about something else.’

‘I see. Do you get state help or are you a private institution?’

‘Both. We’re a private foundation, but we do get some financial support from the state, as well as personal donations and so on. We have an idealistic mission but we’re politically and religiously independent. Religious feeling has perhaps produced most of the problems, locally, and the local council has sort of put Bruflåt – Belinda’s father – in charge of us, like some kind of public watchdog.’

‘And are you successful?’

‘Depends what you mean. We manage to get some youngsters back on the straight and narrow, I think. Otherwise it would be a waste of time running this place. Some have stayed in this district permanently. We have a young family who run a little farm a couple of kilometres from here. Both the parents were hardened addicts before they came here. They had small children too, but now social services have given them back to them – for good. If you mean financially, then the answer is yes and no. We keep our heads above water, just. But we couldn’t cope with much more tightening of the public strings – we’d go under.’

I nodded. ‘And Ruth – how long’s she been here?’

‘For six months, I’d guess. Maybe seven or eight. She was 280pretty run down when she came, slept round the clock for three or four days, only getting up for meals. But then … she recovered. Things seemed to be going well for a long time. But then the past started catching up with her again. Tormenting her. As I said before, we’d started worrying about her. She became dreadfully restless … as though … As though there was something she should’ve done, but which she hadn’t had the time to complete.’

I leaned forward. ‘What was it in her past that was bothering her?’

Her face became grey and forbidding. ‘I can’t answer that. Like all social workers I’m bound by an oath of confidentiality.’

‘Totally?’

‘Totally and absolutely and incorruptibly.’

I nodded. ‘I see. So you have no idea where she could be in Bergen? She doesn’t have an address?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘What do you do about her post? Doesn’t it have to be sent on?’

‘She never has any. She never got any post.’

‘Could it be that some of the others here know a little more about where I could find her?’