Mrs Kielland turned. 'Mr Sunde? That is very strange. I have not seen him since middag.'
'Probably he has gone to Bovaagen to help his partner with that equipment,' Kielland said.
'Ah yes,' his wife agreed. 'That is it. I'm sure that is what he will have done. Why? Did you wish to speak with him?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I–I wanted to know more about his diving methods. If you'll excuse me, I'll just take a stroll round and see if he's about.' I nodded to Curtis and he followed me out.
'He wouldn't have gone to Bovaagen surely,' he said as we closed the door. 'Not with Lovaas there.'
'He might have gone first and Lovaas followed,' I answered. 'We'll just see if he's on the station.'
Curtis, who knew quite a bit of Norwegian from his service in the country, questioned everyone we met. But the only person who seemed to have seen anything of Sunde since the midday meal was the steward. He'd seen him going down behind the station towards the cutting where the sea swept in. We walked down to it across the bare rock. The sun was slanting behind the iron chimneys of the station and the rock was a warm, golden colour. We reached the cutting. It was narrow and the sea ran out through it fast as the tide fell. We crossed a bridge and continued on. Men's boots had blazed a trail through the years that led like a white path to the crest of a jagged shoulder of rock. From the top we could see the white spire of Bovaagen church standing like a bright spearhead against the pale, burnished blue of the sky. And in a little backwater to our left a rowing boat lay tied to a rock. It was the sort of boat you find everywhere in Norway — a development of the coracle, pinched out to a point at bow and stern, a miniature Viking's craft that had survived down the ages even to its fixed wooden rowlocks. From a neighbouring rock, a length of rope trailed in the greasy water.
'Perhaps there was another boat there,' Curtis suggested. 'He may have rowed down to Bovaagen.'
'Possible,' I said.
'Or he may have walked,' Curtis added, gazing towards the little wooden church on the distant hill. 'It can't be so very far if the men walk it every day.'