“D’you miss your dad, Jan Henry?” Sejer asked quietly.
The boy stared back in surprise, as if it were the first time anyone had thought to ask him such a question. His answer was clear.
“Very much,” he said simply.
They fell silent again. Sejer headed down toward the textile mill, indicated right, and drove toward the rapids.
“It’s so quiet in the garage,” the boy said suddenly.
“Yes. A pity Mom can’t do car repairs.”
“Mmm. Dad was always in there doing things. In his spare time.”
“And all those nice smells,” Sejer grinned, “oil and petrol and suchlike.”
“He promised me a boiler suit,” he went on, “just like his one. But he didn’t have time before he disappeared. The boiler suit had fourteen pockets in it. I was going to wear it when I was working on my bike. It’s called a mechanic’s suit.”
“Yup, a mechanic’s suit, that’s right. I’ve got one myself, but mine’s blue, and it’s got FINA on the back. I’m not sure it’s got fourteen pockets. Eight or ten perhaps.”
“The blue ones are nice, too. Do they have them in children’s sizes?” he asked precociously.
“I’m not sure about that, but I’ll definitely look into it.”
He made a little mental note, indicated right again, and drew up. They could see down to NRK’s local broadcasting center in its idyllic setting down by the river. He pointed to the windows glinting in the sun.
“Shall we wind them up a bit? With the sirens?”
Jan Henry nodded.
“Press here,” he said pointing, “then we’ll see just how hungry they are for news down there. Perhaps they’ll come rushing out with all their microphones.”
The siren started and wailed loudly in the silence, rebounded off the hillside opposite, and came howling back again. Inside the car it didn’t sound so piercing, but when its hundred decibels had been going for a few seconds, the first face appeared at one of the shiny windows. Then another. Then one of them opened a door and walked out on to the balcony at the end of the building. They could see him raise a hand and shade his eyes from the sun.
“They think it’s at least a murder!” the boy exclaimed.
Sejer chuckled and studied the winter-wan faces that continued to emerge from the building.
“We’d better pipe down. See if you can switch it off, now.”
He could. His eyes were shining with delight and his cheeks were flecked with red.
“How does it work?” he asked with childish confidence in Sejer’s abilities.
“Well,” said Sejer, digging deep into his memory, “it’s like this, first they make an oscillating circuit electronically, which in turn creates a square pulse, which is amplified by an amplifier and fed into a loudspeaker.”
Jan Henry nodded.
“And then they vary it from eight hundred to sixteen hundred cycles. In other words, they alter its strength, to make it easier to hear.”
“At the siren factory?”
“Yup. At the siren factory. In America, or Spain. But now we’ll go and get an ice cream, Jan Henry.”
“Yes. We deserve one, even though we haven’t caught any baddies.”
They pulled out on to the main road again and turned left toward the town. When they got to the trotting course, he stopped, parked, and steered the boy over to the kiosk. Once he’d got it, he needed a bit of help with the paper. They sat on a bench in the sun sucking and licking. Jan Henry had chosen an ice lolly, red and yellow and tipped with chocolate, while Sejer ate a strawberry ice cream, which had been his favorite ever since boyhood. He’d never seen any reason to change.
“Are you going back to work afterwards?” Jan Henry was wiping juice from his chin with his free hand.
“Yes, but I’ve got to visit a man first. In Erik Børresensgate.”
“Is he a baddie?”
“No, no,” Sejer smiled. “Probably not.”
“But you’re not completely certain? He could be?”
Sejer had to capitulate and chuckled a little.
“Well, yes, possibly. That’s why I’m going to see him. But it’s mainly to make sure that he isn’t. Because then I can cross him off the list. That’s the way we do it, you see, until there’s only one person left.”
“I bet he’ll be scared when you come in that car.”
“Yes, I’m sure he will. Everyone is. People are funny like that. You see, nearly everyone’s got something in their past they feel guilty about. And when I suddenly turn up at their door, I can almost see them searching their memories to work out what I’ve discovered. I shouldn’t laugh, but sometimes it’s impossible not to.”
The boy nodded, and basked in the company of this wise policeman. They finished their ice creams and returned to the car. Sejer got a serviette from the kiosk and wiped the boy’s mouth and helped him with his seat belt.
“Mom and me are going to town to rent videos. One for each of us.”
Sejer put the car in gear and checked the mirror.
“And what are you going to get? A film about baddies?”
“Yes. Home Alone Two. I’ve seen the first one twice.”
“You’ll have to take the bus out and back. If you haven’t got a car.”
“Yes. It takes rather a long time, but it doesn’t matter, ’cause we’ve got lots of time, really. Before, when Dad — when we had a car, it only took a minute to drive there and back.” He poked a finger up his nose and picked it a bit. “Dad wanted a BMW. He’d been to see it. It was white. If that woman had bought the Manta.”
Sejer almost drove off the road. His heart gave a great leap, then he controled himself.
“What was that you were saying, Jan Henry — I wasn’t quite paying attention.”
“A woman. Wanted to buy our car.”
“Did Dad talk about it?”
“Yes. In the garage. It was that day — the last day he was at home.”
“A woman?” Sejer felt a shiver run down his spine. “Did he say what she was called?” He glanced in the mirror, changed lanes, and held his breath.
“Yes, because he had her name on a bit of paper.”
“Oh, really?”
“But I can’t remember it now, it’s such a long time ago.”
“On a piece of paper? Did you see it?”
“Yes, he had it in the pocket of his boiler suit. He was lying on his back under the car, and I was sitting on the bench as usual. Well, it wasn’t a piece of paper exactly, more a bit of paper. Sort of half of a sheet of paper.”
“But you say you saw it — did he take it out of his pocket?”
“Yes, from his chest pocket. He read the name, and then...”
“He put it back in his pocket?”
“No.”
“Did he throw it away?”
“I can’t remember what he did with it,” he said wistfully.
“If you were to think very hard, do you think you could remember what he did with it?”
“Don’t know.” The boy looked earnestly at the policeman, he was beginning to realize that it was important. “But if I remember about it I’ll say,” he whispered.
“Jan Henry,” Sejer said softly, “this is very, very important.”
They’d arrived at the green house.
“I know it is.”
“So if you should remember anything about this woman, anything at all, you must let Mom know, so that she can phone me.”
“All right then. If I remember. But it is a long time ago.”
“It certainly is. But it is possible, if you try very hard and think about something for a long time, day after day, to remember something you thought you’d forgotten.”
“Bye.”
“See you,” Sejer said.
He turned the car and watched him in the mirror as he ran to the house.
“I ought to have realized,” he said to himself, “that the boy would know something. He was always hanging around the garage with his father. Will I never learn?”