Sejer could only think of a dead tree. The woman was still upright, but all her strength had gone. It didn't matter to her whether or not he caught a couple of miserable purse snatchers. Her baby was dead. For more than three decades she had lived without the child. How attached could she be to a child she had known for only four months. Until death do us part, he thought. He also thought about the phenomenon of time and how it had a capacity to make things pass, to make things fade, if nothing else. He let her stand there in silence. In the meantime he remembered what the doctor had said. That an autopsy would be performed on the boy. That, in all probability, his fall from the pram had nothing to do with his death. It was just a tragic, frightening coincidence. It wouldn't do any good to tell that to the mother now. She had made up her mind. Two young men had killed the most precious thing she possessed. Not that she was thinking about them. She wasn't thinking about anything; she was just letting time run listlessly along. Now and again she would blink; her eyelids would droop and then, with what looked like great difficulty, they would open wide.
"Won't you sit down?"
She dropped on to a chair. Her beige coat no longer looked like a piece of clothing, but rather a big stretch of canvas that someone had draped across her shoulders.
"Tell me everything you can remember about what they looked like," he said.
"I can't remember anything," she replied. Her voice was flat. She may have taken some kind of medication. A kind-hearted doctor hadn't been able to stand seeing her pain.
"Yes, you can," he told her. "It's possible to recall bits and pieces if you concentrate."
Concentrate? The word made her raise her head and look at him in disbelief. She barely had the strength to keep herself sitting upright on the chair.
"Why should I help you?" she said, her voice faint.
"Because we're talking about two men who need to understand the gravity of what they did. We won't be able to prove that they're responsible for your son's death, but it will give them an almighty shock. And perhaps prevent them from doing any such thing again."
"I don't care about that." Once more she raised her head to look at him. "And you don't even believe what you're saying. If they kill a baby every week from now on – I still don't care." He searched for something to say that might rouse her. "Maybe you don't care right now," he said, "but what about a year from now? Then you'll start to worry because you didn't do anything. You'll worry at the thought that they're still going around as if nothing had happened."
She gave a tired laugh. Sejer got up and walked to the window, as he often did. Rain was streaming down the pane. So unaffected, so untouched. And that prompted the thought that something would still be untouched after everything else had vanished. And would keep running, floating on the wind, pounding against the rocks, salty and hard.
"But you're here," he said, turning round. "So I have to think that you might be able to help. Or else why did you come? I had given up hope, and we have lost a lot of time."
His words made her look at him, she was more alert now.
"Well, no," she stammered. "I was hoping for an explanation. There's always an explanation, isn't there?"
An explanation? As if he had one. Instead he shook his head. "You can help me," he said softly.
"Even though I can't help you. And in that sense, it was a little awkward to ask you to come here. But if we cannot – with your help – resolve the matter, you may end up feeling regret, and by then it will also be harder to remember things."
"One of them wore a cap." The words slipped out, quietly, reluctantly.
"A cap?" he said. "Let me guess. It was probably red."
He saw a glimpse of a smile as she said, "No, it was blue. With white letters. And a little white cross. Do you hear me? A white cross!"
He could feel that something had broken the ice. For the first time she relaxed.
"They were driving a small green car. One was tall and thin, with long legs. Wearing a yellow shirt. I couldn't see his hair because it was hidden under the cap. He was very good-looking. He had light eyes, blue or green. He was wearing trousers with wide legs. I remember noticing that when he ran to the car, his trousers were flapping around his legs. And he had black shoes."
Sejer sat there agog. She had given the description with great confidence. That was how he looked.
"And the other one?" he asked. At the same time a clock began ticking in his mind.
"The other was shorter and more compact. Blond hair, tight jeans, running shoes. He tried to stop the pram," she added. "But he didn't reach it in time."
Something sounded so familiar. What was it about everything she had said? Something was niggling him. Something was ticking in the background, saying: here, here it is, for heaven's sake, can't you see it!
"Their age?" he whispered, as he struggled to decipher the peculiar signals buzzing in his mind. He thought: If I take too deep a breath, it will escape. So he sat there for a long time, hardly breathing.
"Maybe 18, maybe 20."
He wrote down key words. And began to have the satisfaction when the dots and lines, which had been whirling unpleasantly before his eyes for so long, started to form a pattern. Clear, distinct, almost beautiful. A warm feeling inside. This was what he loved.
"Can't you tell me anything more about the car?"
He strained to keep a calm tone to his voice, but it wasn't easy.
"I don't know much about cars," she murmured.
"They all look alike to me."
"But it was a small car?"
"Yes. A small, oldish car."
He scribbled more notes. "This neighbourhood isn't very big. We'll find them," he added, "I'm positive we will."
"I'm sure that will make you happy," she said, smiling.
For a few seconds she hadn't been thinking about the dead child, and the first pang of guilt appeared, at the discovery that her child could be forgotten even for a few moments. What a betrayal!
"They're performing the autopsy now," she said bitterly. "And when they've finished, I won't have anything to say about it. What if they're wrong?"
"You mean as far as the cause of death is concerned? They're specialists," he said. "You can depend on them."
"People make mistakes all the time," she said. "I shouldn't have let go of the pram."
"You were being assaulted," he said forcefully.
"No," she said. "They stole my handbag, that's all. An old handbag, a thing of no importance. Four hundred kroner. And then I let go of the pram. Even though we were near the shore. I don't understand it."
"Why didn't you report it straightaway?" He didn't like asking the question; it seemed to ask itself.
"It was such an insignificant business. I was worried about the boy, that's all. Because he kept crying. Besides," she said, looking up at him, "what would you have been able to do? File a report? Until such time as you could have dropped the case for lack of evidence?"
"Perhaps," he admitted. "But society is going to fall apart if we stop reporting crime. You shouldn't worry about how much work we have, you should always speak up if something happens. And the more reports we receive, the greater likelihood of increased resources. In fact, you have a responsibility to report an incident like that one." She uttered a sound that might have been a laugh, he couldn't tell.
"I'm not laughing at you," she said. "I'm laughing at everything else. We can't do anything about the fact that we're here in this world. But why do we stay?"
She stood up. She didn't have a handbag. Her arms moved nervously, as if they were searching for the handle of a pram. At the door, she turned.
"Do you know what the worst thing is?" He shook his head.