Karin Fossum - He Who Fears The Wolf

They were sitting in her office. Sejer smiled, indicating that he too wished Kannick could win that trophy.

"Is he having trouble dealing with what happened?" he asked, staring at her face with fascination. Beautiful she was not. She looked like a man, with a high forehead, wrinkled skin, the hint of a moustache and a deep voice. And she was filled with an unshakeable faith in the goodness of human beings, and especially the individuals in her charge. Benevolence spread like an attractive, blushing eagerness over her rough face.

"He's handling it fine. At least, he seems to be able to focus on the archery match, and in that way hold everything else at bay. You should also bear in mind that the boys here have been through a little of everything. It takes a lot to unsettle them."

"I understand," said Sejer. "Tell me about Kannick."

Her chair scraped as she shifted position.

"Kannick is what we call a good old-fashioned accident. The result of his mother's impulsiveness and lack of character, which, from what I know of her family, she never had a chance to develop. Just like Kannick, she was always in the way. Nothing but a bother. Every summer Polish labourers come here to work on the farms. She was working at the petrol-station shop where the labourers would turn up every week to buy cheap cigarettes and maybe a porn magazine if they were feeling extravagant. No doubt they were the highlight of her week. Different, exotic. And, as she told me, much more gallant towards women than the men she was used to. She said, 'They treated me like a lady, Margunn!' It's clear that things like that made an impression on a girl who had long ago lost all trace of innocence, nor was remotely sorry for it. One day he turned up at the shop: Kannick's father. He'd been away from Poland for four months and was homesick, she said. It's not hard to imagine."

Margunn gave Sejer a conciliatory smile. "Kannick was conceived in the stockroom, after the station closed for the evening, among crates of crisps and chamois cloths. And it never occurred to her to regret it, at least not until she realised that the boy was on the way. He cried a lot as a baby, but she discovered that as long as he was full, he didn't fuss. What this technique has led to, you'll soon see. The mother was busy trying to find someone who would love her, and she still is. She doesn't want Kannick. She doesn't dislike him, but she just can't see that he's her responsibility. She feels that he was inflicted upon her, like an illness."

"What kind of problems caused him to end up here?"

"At first he acted up and was much too impulsive to function at a regular school. But now he's starting to close himself off. He spends a lot of time daydreaming, can't manage to show enthusiasm for anything, and doesn't make friends. He craves attention, and when he's in the spotlight, he blossoms. If he doesn't get everyone's attention, then he doesn't want any at all. An instructor comes to give him archery lessons every week, and in that situation he's more lively, because it's all about Kannick and what he can or can't do. But in a school setting he's just one of many students, and then he shows no interest in participating."

"So it's all or nothing?"

"Yes, something like that."

"Where is his room?"

"On the second floor, right at the back. There's a sticker for Freia Marabou chocolate on the door."

Sejer had brought along a bag of sweets. He knew he wasn't visiting a sick patient, but the poor boy had been through a terrible experience, and he could do with some extra kindness. But when Sejer saw the fat boy lying on his bed, he was sorry he had thought to bring sweets.

"Hello, Kannick. My name is Konrad."

He was standing in the doorway of the room that Kannick shared with Philip. Kannick was lying on his back, reading a comic, and chewing on something crunchy. He looked up, first at Sejer, and then at the bag he held in his hand.

"I'm from the police."

Kannick tossed his comic aside. "I told the other boys that I was sure you would come, but they didn't believe me. They said I wasn't important enough."

Sejer smiled. "Of course you're important. I've been talking to Margunn in her office. Mind if I sit down on the edge of the bed?"

The boy tucked up his legs. Carrying around that much weight must be like carrying a friend on his back, Sejer thought, as he handed the boy the sweets.

"Do you promise to share with the others?"

"OK." He put the bag on the bedside table.

"So you were the one who notified Officer Gurvin?"

The boy brushed back the shock of hair from his forehead. He was wearing cut-off jeans and a T-shirt, with black moccasins on his feet.

"He kept asking me about the time, but I wasn't wearing my watch. I had taken it to be fixed."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Sejer said. "Verifying the time is something that's very important for the police. Knowing the exact time that something happened can often help explain everything, or expose people who are trying to trick us."

Kannick gave him a scared look, as if Sejer might be insinuating something.

"Well, I can't trick you," he said, "since I had no way of telling what time it was anyway. But I know that it was seven o'clock when I left here, because of this." He pointed at the alarm clock on the bedside table.

"So you're something of an early bird, then. It's the summer holiday right now, isn't it?"

"It was so hot. I couldn't sleep. And Philip wheezes very loudly because of his asthma."

Sejer looked around the room. There was a hollow in the bed where Philip might have been lying before he came in. On the bedside table were bottles of medicine and an inhaler. Through the window he could see the heads of three boys who were examining his police car. Every once in a while they looked up at the window.

"It's still possible for us to arrive at an approximate time, if we help each other. Try to go over the day in your mind, from the moment you left here. You say that it was 7 a.m. And from here you walked up to the woods?"

"Yes."

"And you had your bow with you?"

"Uh, yes." He looked down.

"I'm not going to arrest you for it. It's Margunn's job to discipline you. Did you walk fast?"

"Not really."

"Did you stop along the way?"

"Sometimes I stopped to listen for a while. For crows, and things like that. Maybe a couple of times."

"There's a place up there where you often go, isn't that right?"

The boy tugged on the hem of his T-shirt to cover up his stomach. "There's a flat area up above Halldis's farm, with several paths that cross it, so I can choose whatever way I want to go. I know the place like the back of my hand."

His voice rose and fell. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his thighs wide apart. It was impossible for him to sit with his legs together.

"So you went up to that spot, up to the ridge, and you stopped twice along the way?"

"Yes."

"Can you estimate how long it took? Maybe if you compare it to something else that you do?"

"About the same time as an episode of The X-Files."

"The X-Files? Do they allow you to watch that programme here?"

"Jesus, yes."

"It takes about 45 minutes, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"So." Sejer crossed his legs and smiled encouragingly. "So, you're up on the ridge and it's about 7.45 a.m.?"

"I suppose that's right, yes."

Kannick glanced over at the bag of sweets. It was a large bag. He made a swift calculation. He knew that the large size held 52 pieces, which meant five for each of them, and two for Margunn. If he decided to share, as the policeman had said he should.

"And then you decided on one of the paths?"

"There are four of them. One goes over the ridge. One goes down to the place with the view. One goes to the old homestead sites, and one goes down to Halldis's farm."