And so he had chosen the coward’s way out. Terrified of ending up alone in some shitty bachelor’s flat, staring at the walls and wondering what to do with his life, he’d taken the only way remaining to him. Beata’s way. She had won. And he’d walked out on Carina and Per. Cast them aside like rubbish on the side of the road, even he could see that. In the process he had destroyed Carina. And he’d lost Per. That was the price that he’d paid for the touch of youthful skin under his fingertips.

Maybe he could have held on to Per if he’d been able to ignore the guilt that settled like a heavy stone on his chest every time he so much as thought about the two he’d left behind. But he wasn’t capable of doing that. He’d made sporadic attempts, played the authority figure, played the father on rare occasions, with miserable results.

Now his son was a stranger to him. And Kjell didn’t have the energy to try again. After a lifetime spent hating the father who had abandoned him and his mother in favour of a life in which they had no part, he had done the same thing to his own son. He had turned into his father, and that was the bitter truth.

He pounded his fist on the table, trying to replace the pain in his heart with a physical pain. It didn’t help. Then he opened the bottom desk drawer to look at the only thing that could distract his mind from this torture.

There had been a moment when he had considered handing the material to the police, but at the last second the professional journalist in him had put on the brakes. Erik hadn’t given him much. When he came up to Kjell’s office, he’d spent quite a while talking in circles, obviously uncertain how much he wanted to divulge. At one stage he’d seemed about to turn on his heel and leave without having revealed anything at all.

Kjell opened the folder. He wished he’d managed to ask Erik more questions, to get some pointers as to where he ought to look. All he had were a few newspaper articles that Erik had given him, without comment or explanation.

‘What do you expect me to do with this?’ Kjell had asked, throwing out his hands.

‘That’s your job,’ was Erik’s reply. ‘I know it might seem strange, but I can’t give you the whole answer. I don’t dare. So I’m giving you the tools – you can do the rest.’

And then he’d gone, leaving Kjell sitting at his desk with a folder containing three articles.

Kjell scratched his beard and opened the folder. He’d already read through the material several times, but other things kept coming up that had prevented him from giving his full attention to the task. If he were to be completely honest, he had also questioned the wisdom of devoting any time to it. The old man might just be senile. And if he was really in possession of material as explosive as he’d intimated why hadn’t he explained things better? But with Erik Frankel’s murder, he began to look at the folder in a different light. He was ready to give it his all now. And he knew exactly where to begin: with the common denominator in all three articles. A Norwegian resistance fighter by the name of Hans Olavsen.

‘Hilma!’ Something in Elof’s tone of voice made both his wife and daughter dash out to meet him.

‘Heavens, how you’re shouting. What’s going on?’ exclaimed Hilma, but her voice trailed off when she saw that Elof was not alone. ‘Are we having guests?’ she asked, nervously wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I was just in the middle of washing the dishes.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Elof assured her. ‘The boy won’t mind how things look in the house. He came on the boat with us today. He was fleeing from the Germans.’

The boy held out his hand to Hilma and bowed when she shook it.

‘Hans Olavsen,’ he said in his lilting Norwegian. Then he held out his hand to Elsy, who shook it awkwardly, giving a little curtsey.

‘He’s had a hard time on the way here, so maybe we could offer him some refreshment,’ said Elof. He hung up his peaked cap and handed his coat to Elsy, who held it in her arms without moving.

‘Don’t just stand there, girl. Hang up your father’s coat,’ he said sternly, but then he couldn’t resist stroking his daughter’s cheek. Considering the dangers that now accompanied every voyage, it always felt like a gift when he was able to come back home and see Elsy and Hilma again. He cleared his throat, embarrassed to have succumbed to such emotion in the presence of a stranger. Then he motioned with his hand.

‘Come in, come in. I’m sure Hilma will find something nice for us,’ he said, sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs.

‘We don’t have much to offer,’ said his wife, her eyes lowered. ‘But what little we have, we will gladly share.’

‘I’m sincerely grateful,’ said the boy, sitting down across from Elof as he hungrily eyed the plate of sandwiches that Hilma was setting on the table.

‘All right, help yourself,’ she said, and then went over to the cupboard to pour a little dram of aquavit for them both. Liquor was scarce, but this seemed a proper occasion for it.

They ate in silence. When there was only one sandwich left, Elof pushed the plate towards the Norwegian boy, urging him with a glance to take it. Elsy watched surreptitiously as she stood next to the counter, helping her mother. This was all so exciting. In their very own kitchen was somebody who had fled from the Germans, coming all the way here from Norway. She couldn’t wait to tell the others. Then a thought occurred to her, and she almost couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. But her father must have had the same thought, because he asked the very question that was on her mind.

‘There’s a boy from here in town who was taken by the Germans. That was more than a year ago, but maybe you…’ Elof threw out his hands, fixing his eyes on the boy across the table.

‘Well, it’s not likely that I’d know anything about him. There are so many people coming and going. What’s his name?’

‘Axel Frankel,’ said Elof. But the hope in his eyes turned to disappointment when the boy, after thinking for a moment, shook his head.

‘No, I’m afraid not. We haven’t come across him. At least I don’t think so. You haven’t heard anything about what happened to him? Nothing that would supply a little more information?’

‘Unfortunately, no,’ said Elof, shaking his head. ‘The Germans took him in Kristiansand, and since then we haven’t heard a peep. For all we know, he might be -’

‘No, Pappa. I don’t believe it!’ Elsy’s eyes filled with tears, and feeling embarrassed she ran upstairs to her room. She couldn’t believe that she’d humiliated herself and her parents that way. Crying like a baby in front of a complete stranger.

‘Does your daughter know this… Axel?’ asked the Norwegian, looking concerned as he stared after her.

‘She’s friends with his younger brother. And it’s been hard for Erik. For Axel’s whole family,’ said Elof with a sigh.

A shadow passed over Hans’s eyes. ‘Many people have been sorely tested by this war,’ he said.

Elof could tell that this boy had seen things that no one his age ought to have witnessed.

‘What about your own family?’ he asked cautiously. Hilma was standing at the counter drying a plate, but she stopped what she was doing.

‘I don’t know where they are,’ said Hans at last, his eyes fixed on the table. ‘When the war is over – if it’s ever over – I’ll go back to look for them. Until then, I can’t return to Norway.’

Hilma met Elof’s eyes over the boy’s blond head. After carrying on a silent conversation, based solely on an exchange of glances, they reached an agreement. Elof cleared his throat.

‘Well, you see, we usually rent out our house to summer visitors and live in the basement room ourselves while they’re here. But the room is empty the rest of the year. Maybe you’d like to… stay here for a while and rest up, before you decide what to do next. I can probably find you some work too. Maybe not full-time, but at least enough so you’d have money in your pocket. First I’ll have to report to the district police that I’ve brought you into the country, but if I promise to look after you, there shouldn’t be any problem.’