“Oh yes. A sensitive young man full of words and dreams.”

“Good thing I didn’t know you back then,” Anette said, winking at him. “I mean, it’s hard enough to put up with you as a grown-up.”

“Seriously, though, his backpack could be an indication that he was abducted against his will. Why else would it be stashed on a dock? He didn’t leave it there while going for a swim, did he?”

“I still don’t buy it,” she said, shaking her head. “Kidnappers are nervous and blunt in their messages. If this was being done for money, we’d have heard from them by now—I mean, in a concrete way.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“I say the parents did it.” Anette drank and then wiped her mouth with her hand.

“Did what?” Jeppe countered. “You can’t just toss out an accusation like that!”

“Well, all you do is come up with half-baked theories.” She laughed wryly. “No, in all honesty, there’s something off with that family. Time will tell whether it’s the father, who swatted him too hard, or the mother, who has Munchausen syndrome by proxy. But I’m afraid that Oscar’s lying on the bottom of the ocean with something heavy tied to his legs.”

“If there’s anyone who has Munchausen, it’s you! Those poor people are dying of fear for their missing son. Give them a chance, would you!” Jeppe set some money on the bar. “The threats against the family are real enough, so they’re probably related to Oscar’s disappearance.”

“That’s what they want us to think anyway,” Anette said.

Jeppe rapped his knuckles on the bar.

“Well, that’s it for me. I’m going home to Sara.… You know, another possibility is that Oscar has gotten messed up in something online, through a chat or online game.”

Anette finished her beer, sighed, and then said, “So, what you’re saying is that some internet psychopath on a surfboard left the parents a nice letter, then took the boy out to sea and vanished into thin air?”

“Yes, Werner,” Jeppe said, getting up. “That is exactly what I’m saying.”

DIRTY SOCKS, SINGLE sneakers, tote bags, hats, schoolbooks, unopened envelopes, and comic books. The apartment looked like a garbage dump. All items lay scattered about in a way that robbed them of their original purpose, as if the things had lost their value by virtue of their location and had turned into garbage on the living room floor.