Don't Look Back Read Free Page A

up and getting bigger," he said persuasively. "She's becoming more adventurous."
    God help me, he thought, I've got an answer for everything. He got up and dialed another number, repressing an urge to look at his watch again—it would be a reminder that time was passing, and they didn't need that. He reached the Duty Officer, gave him a brief summary of the situation and asked him to contact a volunteer rescue group. He gave him the address in Granittveien and gave a quick description of the girl: dressed in red, almost white hair, pink doll's carriage. Asked whether any messages had come in, and was told none had been received. He sat down again.
    "Has Ragnhild mentioned or named anyone lately whom you didn't know yourself?"
    "No."
    "Did she have any money? Could she have been looking for a shop?"
    "She had no money."
    "This is a small village," he went on. "Has she ever been out walking and been given a ride by one of the neighbors?"
    "Yes, that happens sometimes. There are about a hundred houses on this ridge, and she knows almost everyone, and she knows their cars. Sometimes she and Marthe have walked down to the church with their carriages, and they've been given a ride home with one of the neighbors."
    "Is there any special reason why they go to the church?"
    "There's a little boy they knew buried there. They pick
flowers for his grave, and then they come back up here. I think it seems exciting to them."

    "You've searched at the church?"
    "I called for Ragnhild at ten o'clock. When they told me she had left at eight, I jumped in the car. I left the front door unlocked in case she came back while I was out searching. I drove to the church and down to the Fina gas station, I looked in the auto workshop and behind the dairy, and then I drove over to the school to look in the schoolyard, because they have jungle gyms and things there. And then I checked the kindergarten. She was so keen on starting school, she..."
    Another bout of sobbing took hold. As she wept, the others sat still and waited. Her eyes were puffy now, and she was crumpling her skirt in her fingers in despair. After a while her sobs died away and the lethargy returned—a shield to keep the terrible possibilities at bay.
    The phone rang. A sudden ominous jangle. She gave a start and got up to answer it, but caught sight of Sejer's hand held up to stop her. He lifted the receiver.
    "Hello? Is Irene there?"
    It sounded like a boy. "Who's calling?"
    "Thorbjørn Haugen. We're looking for Ragnhild."
    "You're speaking with the police. Do you have any news?"
    "We've been to all the houses on the whole ridge. Every single one. A lot of people weren't home, though we did meet a lady in Feltspatveien. A truck had backed into her farmyard and turned around; she lives in number 1. A kind of van, she thought. And inside the van she saw a girl with a green jacket and white hair pulled into a topknot on her head. Ragnhild often wears her hair in a topknot."
    "Go on."
    "It turned halfway up the hill and drove back down. Disappeared around the curve."
    "Do you know what time it was?"

    "It was 8:15 A.M. "
    "Can you come over to Granittveien?"
    "We'll be right there; we're at the circle now."
    He hung up. Irene Album was still standing.
    "What was it?" she whispered. "What did they say?"
    "Someone saw her," he said slowly. "She got into a van."

    Irene Album's scream finally came. It was as if the sound penetrated through the tight forest and created a faint movement in Ragnhild's mind.
    "I'm hungry," she said suddenly. "I have to go home."
    Raymond looked up. Pasan was shuffling about on the kitchen table and licking up the seeds they had scattered over it. They had forgotten both time and place. They had fed all the rabbits, Raymond had shown her his pictures, cut out of magazines and carefully pasted into a big album. Ragnhild kept roaring with laughter at his funny face. Now she realized that it was getting late.
    "You can have a slice of bread."
    "I have to go home.