‘Does he have a mobile?’ Skarre asked.
‘It’s inside,’ Axel said, ‘and that’s weird. That he didn’t put it in his pocket, because he always does.’
Skarre turned to the divers who were leaning against the rescue vehicle.
‘All right,’ he called out. ‘Let’s get started.’
He fixed his glance on Reilly.
‘Were you drinking last night?’
Reilly shrugged. ‘We had a little wine. Jon was the first to go to bed, but he wasn’t drunk, if that’s what you were thinking.’
‘I don’t think anything,’ Skarre said.
Then, having considered this for a moment, he asked: ‘Are you missing anything?’
‘What do you mean?’ Axel frowned.
‘Is anything missing?’ Skarre explained. ‘Did Jon Moreno take anything with him?’
‘We haven’t noticed anything missing,’ Axel said.
Skarre issued instructions to the emergency team, and the divers started carrying their equipment down to the lake. Skarre himself joined Sejer in the cabin. Reilly followed. He went to the kitchen and lifted the kitten out of the cake tin. His hands were the size of plates. You could eat porridge out of them, Axel used to say. The kitten was lying there, curled up.
‘Where did you find it?’ Sejer said.
‘In the forest,’ Reilly said. ‘The other kittens were dead. So was their mother. I brought it inside. There are foxes around here.’
‘Yes,’ Sejer said. ‘They need to eat too.’
‘It’s not food,’ Reilly said gruffly.
They sat down in front of the fireplace. Sejer wanted to know their names, dates of birth and where they worked. If they often came to this cabin at Dead Water, and why it was called Dead Water, did they know? Did they have a map of the area? No, Axel replied. He mostly asked questions about Jon. About how long they had known him. If he was depressed, if he had indicated that he might want to end it all. They said he had been quiet the whole evening, a little introverted, as though he was struggling with difficult issues. He pops anti-anxiety pills all the time, Axel explained.
‘What’s he scared of?’ Sejer asked.
Axel was momentarily wrong-footed.
‘This anxiety of his is complicated,’ he said, ‘because we don’t know all the things that he worried about.’
‘He was scared, but you never asked him what he was scared of?’ Axel and Reilly looked at each other.
‘I don’t think you quite understand anxiety,’ Axel began.
‘Yes,’ Sejer said, ‘I do. And I expect old friends to know one another. His pills, where are they? Did he take them with him?’
Reilly looked up from the kitten.
‘He always keeps them in his pocket. Never goes anywhere without those pills. Not that they do him much good, in my opinion. Jon trembles like an old man. Like this.’
He held up his hand to demonstrate.
Sejer picked up a Nokia mobile phone lying on top of a pile of newspapers.
‘Jon’s mobile?’
The sight of the mobile made Reilly nervous. He got the feeling they had overlooked something. Perhaps it has to do with truth, he thought, it has its own quality which you cannot emulate, its own pure tone.
‘So what do you think?’ Sejer wanted to know.
‘Well,’ Axel said, ‘we fear the worst. That he might have jumped into the lake. Last night. While we were sleeping.’
‘Why would he have done that?’
‘He was hospitalised. In a psychiatric ward.’
‘Is that a reason?’
Axel smiled patronisingly. ‘You probably don’t understand what I mean,’ he said.
‘Can he swim?’ Skarre asked.
‘No,’ Axel said. ‘Jon can’t swim.’
The search and rescue team was moving towards the lake.
Reilly followed Sejer and Skarre with his eyes. They acted as if they owned the place. The cabin, the grassy bank and the lake. There was something very organised about them, a sense of purpose which made him feel uneasy.
Sejer looked at the green boat, then across the lake.
‘How deep is it?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know,’ Axel said.
‘Have you touched the boat?’
‘No.’
Sejer squatted down. ‘I’m asking because I can see that someone has moved it,’ he said. ‘It used to lie higher up, there are marks in the grass.’
We did not see those, Reilly thought, because it was dark. We did not even think about them. That’s it, we’re going to get caught.
Sejer wandered up and down the shore; Skarre walked alongside him. They conferred quietly with each other.
‘This is the only place you can wade into the water,’ Sejer observed. ‘If Jon walked into the lake, then this is where he did it. The rocks on the other side look inaccessible. Or what do you think?’
‘How do you get up into the mountains?’ Skarre asked.
‘From the other side,’ Reilly explained. ‘It’s a long way. And it’s very steep.’
He closed his mouth. It was best to shut up and let the police draw their conclusions in peace. When the whole miserable business came to light one day, they would just have to deal with it then. Sejer talked to the divers and agreed on an approximate point where Jon might lie.
‘If he’s in the water at all. There are other possibilities,’ Sejer said.
The rubber dinghy was launched and the divers waded into the water. The Red Cross team would search the forest area around the lake. Abel the Alsatian strained on his leash, keen to get going. The divers were now some distance out and one of them had gone under with a powerful torch. When their work was well under way and the search party had disappeared into the sheep fields, Sejer asked to see where Jon had been sleeping. They returned to the cabin. Axel opened the door to the smallest bedroom. The room was almost bare, with red gingham curtains, a small bedside table and a paraffin lamp. On the wall hung a photo of the King and Queen of Norway. Axel pointed to the sleeping bag. It was green with orange lining and lay in a messy heap on the foam mattress. A blue nylon bag was leaning against the wall.
‘Is that Jon’s bag?’
They nodded.
‘What time did he go to bed?’
‘It was around midnight. Or what do you think, Reilly?’
‘Midnight,’ Reilly mumbled.
‘You said he was quiet last night? That he was quieter than usual?’ Sejer asked.
‘He was very depressed,’ Axel explained, ‘and has been for a long time: that was why he had been admitted to Ladegården. Jon is a worrier, he can’t handle very much. We should not have let him sleep on his own,’ he added. ‘I don’t know what we were thinking.’
A flash of anguish crossed his face. He is in control of every single muscle, Reilly thought.
‘Do you know why he fell ill?’ Skarre asked.
They shook their heads.
‘People get ill,’ Axel said. ‘It happens.’
‘Did it happen suddenly?’
‘I suppose it was gradual.’
‘And when did it start?’
Reilly felt like giving up right there and then. They would want to know everything. They would talk to Jon’s mother and his friends, the staff at the hospital and his colleagues at Siba Computers, where he had worked over the past year, and everyone would add a piece to the puzzle. All the police would have to do was put them together.
I need to get high, he thought.
‘It started last winter,’ Axel said.
He had decided to tell the truth as far as possible. Other people would remember that was when it had started. It was a question of being one step ahead.
‘He was having trouble sleeping. It must have been around Christmas. He lost weight. He was off sick from work. In spring it got worse; eventually he couldn’t manage even the simplest things and he spent the whole summer in bed. We went to visit him a couple of times, but he turned his face to the wall and wouldn’t talk to us. He was admitted four weeks ago. We’ve been so worried,’ Axel said, ‘and we don’t know what’s happened, but we fear the worst.’