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normally a good sleeping pill, and after cheating a couple of times, it drifted over him. It would be just as well to usethe bed that was made on the upper floor. On the way upstairs, he noticed Agnes had not left for home yet, or at least he had not observed her departure. It was unlikely that Agnes would leave without popping her head in the door of the TV room to say good night. Come to think of it, he did not understand why she had returned earlier that evening at around ten o’clock. All the reports were up-to-date, as that had been undertaken during the meeting earlier that day, and now she had been in her office for quite some time. He glanced again at the clock. Almost one. Stepping warily, he took a left turn in the corridor on the first floor and slowly depressed the door handle of the twins’ bedroom. They were both lying in Kim-André’s bed, looking like little angels with their arms around each other and small, open mouths breathing lightly and regularly. Eirik cautiously took hold of Roy-Morgan and lifted him over to his own bed, where the boy mumbled sleepy protests before rolling onto his stomach, sighing, and returning to his slumbers. As usual, the boys had left their light on. Leaving it like that, Eirik continued on his rounds.
    They were all asleep. Raymond was snoring, his mouth open and head upturned, lying on his back with arms and legs spread-eagled, falling halfway off the narrow bed with his quilt reposing on the floor. Picking it up, the night attendant returned the long boyish legs to their rightful place without disturbing the occupant and stuffed the edge of the quilt down between the mattress and the edge of the bed in the forlorn hope that it would not slide off again.
    He glanced across at Olav’s bed, and froze. The bed was empty. That did not add up. Although he had been watching television, he would have noticed if the boy had gone out, as the door to the dayroom had been open. Or had it been? He felt hot under the collar.
    Youngsters had run off before. It was easy to avoid coming home from school, or from a visit to the city or whatever. But thiswas his fault, and it was the middle of the night. And Olav was only twelve years old.
    The window was open. The fire rope, fastened to a hook under the windowsill, hung out. Pushing the window wide open, Eirik stared down at the ground five meters below. But the boy had not dared to go near the ropes!
    Without any thought about waking the sleeping children, he rushed out into the corridor, past the staff bedroom, shouting when he had reached almost two meters from the director’s office inside the corridor at the right of the stairs, “Agnes! Agnes! Olav’s run away!”
    Storming into the office, he came to a halt, totally thunderstruck.
    Behind her mahogany writing desk, purchased at a flea market for three hundred kroner, with a potted plant, telephone, cheap plastic writing surface, and red cup containing four pens and a pencil arrayed in front of her, Agnes Vestavik was sitting perfectly still. Her stare penetrated right through him with an expression of surprise and her mouth half open, a little rivulet of coagulated blood running down from one corner of her mouth. Though it was no longer running.
    After standing rooted to the spot for half a minute, Eirik shuffled slowly and stiffly around the desk, as if showing respect for the dead. For she was as dead as she could be: thirteen centimeters of a knife shaft protruded from her back, at about the height of her heart.
    Clasping his hands in front of his face, Eirik burst into tears.

3
    T hat I solemnly swear.”
    She let her right hand fall. There were few things Chief Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen liked less than being a witness in court. It was true that police officers—in contrast with other witnesses—were allowed to a large extent to attend by appointment, with the prosecutor phoning half an hour before they were due to appear in the witness box. Nevertheless, something always