‘Besides, Sammy here would have come running if they’d been home,’ Gertrud continues. ‘So I knew Fredrik must have taken him for his usual walk.’

‘And that made you worried? What did you think could have happened?’

‘I can’t really say what it was that made me go looking for him. Just a feeling, as though I could sense there was something wrong.’

Gertrud Stuub looks down at her lap as though the open Bible might be able to give her the answer. Then she frowns and gently strokes the close-written pages and Karen notices a small smile on her lips.

‘It hadn’t occurred to me until just now,’ Gertrud says, looking up with a dazed expression. ‘But it’s clear to me now – the Lord spoke to me. He was the one who made me go looking for Fredrik.’

Her grief-stricken expression has been replaced by something akin to calm certainty. Karen has often noted, not without envy, that a strong faith can be a comfort to people in dire need. But she has also seen that same faith instil a deluded sense of righteousness in people, selfishness disguised as virtue. Gertrud Stuub’s faith doesn’t seem feigned. If anything, she might start speaking in tongues any moment, Karen thinks to herself, watching the smiling woman with some concern.

The question is whether Gertrud will be able to hold on to that blissful serenity when she realises how close she came to running into her brother’s killer.

Chapter 13

13

Karen’s lower back is aching when she finally turns into the car park next to the ferry port in Lysvik. There are probably places to park closer to the town centre, but here, she knows, the ferry operator’s staff who work shifts around the clock in a building nearby, keep a bit of an eye on the cars.

She climbs out slowly, reaches into the back seat and pulls out the large bag she packed the night before. Then she puts her hands against the door, stretches out her back and feels pain shoot down her right hip. Hours of driving, coupled with favouring her right leg whenever she was on her feet, has left its mark. She had been particularly bothered by her knee on the slippery cliffs up by the quarry, clumsily trying to avoid putting too much weight on it. She glances at her watch and starts walking toward the high street. When she and Kneought Brodal drove through town in the morning on their way to the clinic, she’d noticed a pub on a corner. It had been closed then, but she’s hoping it’ll have a longed-for pint for her now. Or two.