Ms Håkonsen nods again. ‘And was your brother at his school that morning?’

‘No, he wasn’t.’

‘But you did talk to people?’

‘I did, yes. The other kids. Teachers. I even got one of them to help me look for him. But we couldn’t find him.’

‘The teacher who helped you; what was his name?’

‘Tom Hulsker.’

‘You didn’t know him from before, did you?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘But he knew you.’

‘Well, yes. He knew me because of my dad.’

‘We’ll get back to Mr Hulsker a little later,’ Ms Håkonsen says. ‘When you couldn’t find your brother at school – what did you do?’

‘I called Mum. By then, she was hysterical, so I spoke to Imo instead. We agreed about what to do next.’

‘And what was that?’

‘We were just going to go around town, looking for him. Me on my bike, Imo by car. The plan was to ask if anyone had seen him. Bus station, train station, shops he liked to hang out in, the mall … We tried to cover as much ground as we possibly could, as quickly as possible.’

‘But you didn’t find him.’

I shake my head and say no.

‘Then what did you do.’

I find Yngve Mork’s eyes in the audience.

‘We called the police.’

54

THEN

Back at the house I found Mum on the sofa in the living room. Knut was sitting beside her with his hand on her forehead.

‘I’ve given her a little something to calm her down,’ Knut said quietly.

I had no idea how Knut had got his hands on pills like that, but it wasn’t really important right now. Mum seemed to be relaxed. At least she wasn’t screaming and crying anymore.

‘Everything’s going to be fine, Mum,’ I repeated. ‘We’ll find him.’

I thought about my original plan for the day. I was still tempted to go up to Tobias’s room and have a look through his things.

Knut looked at me and said: ‘Could we … eh… go somewhere for a chat?’

Knut had never asked me anything, except maybe to pass the salt during dinner.

‘Sure,’ I said, slightly bewildered. ‘Let’s go into the kitchen.’

I got a lemon yoghurt from the fridge and leaned against the worktop, waiting for Knut to speak. It took a while before he finally did.

‘I’m worried about your mum.’ He looked at me. ‘Before you got here, before I gave her that pill, she said she couldn’t take it anymore. She was beside herself. Said that if anything happened to Tobias as well, she wouldn’t be able to deal with it.’ He stared at me with grave eyes.

‘Wouldn’t deal with it?’ I said. ‘What are you saying? That she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from committing suicide?’