Jeppe put the drawing back in his bag and let her recover for a second before he flipped backward through his notebook to the interview with Malthe’s girlfriend, Josephine.

“Have you heard about the conflicts in Victor’s class when Malthe Sæther was his teacher?”

She hesitated and then said, “Conflict is really too strong a word to use. There were a few students who weren’t happy. Malthe tried to turn that into an issue for the whole class.”

Jeppe watched her closely, trying to assess whether she was deliberately playing it down or rather refusing to acknowledge her children’s problems.

“There was something about a dead dove in Malthe’s bag?”

“Victor didn’t have anything to do with that.” Malin shook her head exasperatedly. “Wasn’t it someone from another class? At any rate, the whole thing got blown way out of proportion.”

“Are you saying the teacher overreacted?”

“Let’s just say that Malthe was young and eager.…” She shrugged and emptied her glass.

“Okay. Remind me again: You and Henrik were both home the whole night Friday, weren’t you?” Jeppe’s esophagus was starting to burn from the rum.

“We talked about that already!” Malin set down her glass with a little clink. “I told you, we watched TV and then went to bed early. Why?”

“Henrik didn’t go out anywhere?”

“No.”

“Thank you for the drink,” Jeppe said, getting up. “I’ll call you as soon as there’s any news.”

She looked at him nonplussed, as if she had been expecting him to stay, then hesitantly got to her feet. A slight stagger made it clear that the rum was beginning to challenge her balance. Either that or her emotions were knocking her off course.

“You’re just leaving?”

“I think that’s probably best.”

Jeppe pressed the elevator button and hoped it got to him before she did. The ding sounded right away, and he stepped in with a relieved goodbye to Malin’s silhouette in the kitchen. His job was to find her son, not be her comforter.

The elevator lighting transformed his reflection in the shiny metal walls into a yellowish ghost. Narrow face, short dark hair—he could easily have played the grown-up Oscar Dreyer-Hoff in a movie.

If there was ever going to be a grown-up Oscar Dreyer-Hoff.

CHAPTER 17