‘God, didn’t either of his parents have any kind of control over this kid?’ Hanstveit asked.

‘Poor lad,’ one of the others offered.

Therese pursed her lips and shook her head slightly, before stroking her belly.

‘The door-to-door around the area close to the bridge,’ Yngve continued. ‘Did that give us anything?’

The man with the caramel-coloured hair coughed into his fist. ‘There aren’t many houses with a direct view of the bridge, so no, not really.’

‘There’s a CCTV camera at the train station,’ Therese said. ‘I’ve requested the footage, if there even was any, but I haven’t got a reply yet.’

Yngve ran a hand over his head. ‘How are we doing on the microphone case?’

‘Nothing solid as of yet,’ Davidsen said.

‘Alright,’ Yngve said and started to walk up and down in front of the table. ‘Priority number one: find the man on the CCTV footage of the school and ask him what he was doing there. Next: find out as much as we can about Mari’s life – her interests, her friends – there must be something we’ve missed. Same goes for Børre Halvorsen. We need a list of the people he was in contact with between the night of the school murders until he was killed himself.’

Some of the officers made notes.

‘Anyone have anything to add?’ Yngve asked.

No one spoke.

‘OK. Then let’s get to it.’

Åse remained in the room as the task force left it. She thought he handled it well. ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said.

‘What’s that?’

He turned to look at Hanstveit. She was standing in the door, looking at him.

‘Hm?’

‘You were saying something.’

‘Oh, was I?’

‘Yes, you were.’

He tried to laugh it off. ‘I’m an old man,’ he said with a careful smile. ‘I was just talking to myself.’

45

45

When we rang the bell at Ida’s house, Oskar and I could already hear the music playing inside.

Elise opened the door for us. ‘Even!’ She was sloshed already. ‘Come in!’

Gone was the blatant suspicion from earlier in the day. I wondered if Ida had had a talk with her about me. She pulled at my arm without saying anything to Oskar. A strange mixture of perfume and alcohol followed in her wake. I thought Ida had said that this wasn’t a ‘party-party’.

Inside there were people everywhere. I half expected to see Mari sitting on the sofa, stealing a secret look at me. The only looks I was getting were sneaky, suspicious ones. But no one said anything to me. I tried to relax.

Oskar and I were looking for Fredrik and Kaiss, when Ida popped up. Like Elise, she called my name loudly. I noticed that several people in the room turned towards us. But that didn’t stop Ida from throwing her arms around me, leaving me no choice but to accept the hug.