The Drowned Boy Read Free Page A

attention, but I was only away for a few minutes. I only went into the bathroom.”
    “We’ll come back to things like blame later,” Holthemann said. “We’ll have to establish first if anyone is to blame at all. Sadly, accidents happen every day, and this time it was your turn.”
    She pushed her chair out from the table, leaned forward over her knees, and stayed like that for some time, as if she was about to faint.
    “There’re spots dancing in front of my eyes,” she said, exhausted. Her voice was thin and frail, barely audible.
    “Yes, it’s the stress,” Holthemann explained. “It affects the muscles around your eyes, but it’s not dangerous. Just relax. Try to breathe normally and it will pass.”
    “I just want to talk to Nicolai,” she begged. “Is he sitting somewhere all on his own?”
    “No, he’s with an officer. I’ll go and get you something to drink. And then we’ll contact your parents. They live here in town, don’t they?”
    “Yes, they live in Møllergata,” she said. “Mom won’t be able to cope with this, nor will Dad. He’s already had one heart attack. The year before last, and we were beside ourselves. I don’t see why I have to sit here,” she complained. “I want to be with Nicolai; you can’t refuse me. Damn you!”
    Holthemann didn’t have an answer. He often fell a bit short when it came to people in need. But everything had been done on Jacob Skarre’s request: he’d said that this was an accidental drowning that they might want to investigate in more detail, just in case. He got up, left her alone in the room, and went to the staff room where there was a fridge full of cold drinks. He took out a bottle of mineral water and walked back before he realized that he’d forgotten to take a plastic cup from the holder. He headed back to the staff room, got one, and returned to the room where she was sitting. He handed her the cup and helped her open the bottle.
    “You will get all the support and understanding you’re entitled to, believe me. Now, have a drink,” he ordered. “The shock is making you thirsty.”

3
    MAYBE HE’D BEEN killed, thrown in the pond, unwanted by his mother, Sejer thought. Or by his father, or both. A child who was different, a deviant—perhaps in some people’s eyes, a loser. A sudden rage, a mean thought, an urge to destroy. Or was he seeing ghosts in broad daylight? The door into the garden was open. There was no one watching the boy and he tottered out of the house and across the dry grass on his plump little legs, walking the short distance from the house to the jetty. Drawn by the glittering water that lay like a mirror in front of him. I’m not being prejudiced, Sejer thought. I must take absolutely every possibility into consideration. I’ve done this job long enough, that’s how I work. Anything is possible in this case. A simple, clear rule that always helped him focus. Too many bitter experiences, he thought, and I don’t like to be duped or lied to. As he drove, he thought about his parents again, and all that they had given him as a little boy. Love and understanding, leniency. Encouragement and confidence, an understanding that life was not easy, for better or for worse. Careful now, he said to himself; they’re probably both innocent. But Skarre had expressed clear concern. He thought about it and what it might mean. Intuition was important and definitely had a role to play in every investigation. Having a feeling about something, the seed of suspicion that something is wrong. It might be a lack of eye contact or a strange distance to what had happened. A body that won’t be still, restless and nervous hands, a monotone voice when giving a statement. The sequence of events rattled off as if learned by rote, a kind of planned version. A hand that constantly dabs the eyes to dry imaginary tears or, for that matter, real tears. Because everything had gone so terribly wrong, with or without blame. Or horror that an