Love Trail

The Love Trail is a narrow paved path beside Hauger School whose significance lies in the way it turns a familiar route home into an opportunity for violence. Johnny Beskow knows its approaches and hiding places; as he waits for Else Meiner, the ordinary landscape of school, bicycle path, and evening travel becomes part of his revenge plan.

Setting and approaches

The path runs behind a red-and-white metal barrier near Hauger School. From the playground, Johnny can see it and recognizes it as a route he had often walked before he got his moped. It forks further on, with one branch seeming to lead south toward Kirkeby. Its bushes are thick enough, he decides, to conceal both himself and his moped. The path’s narrowness and its vegetation offer cover, while the forks make it possible for cyclists to separate from one another.

The Love Trail sits within a larger residential landscape. Bjerketun, a housing estate of sixty homes about four kilometres from the centre of Bjerkås, lies near the grove behind Lily Sundelin and Karsten Sundelin’s house; beyond the trees is Askeland, with seventy-four homes. When investigating the blood prank on Margrete Sundelin, Konrad Sejer traces the route between Bjerkås, Bjerketun, and Askeland on a map and considers whether the unknown perpetrator could have crossed through the trees. This is a police hypothesis about the surrounding area, not proof that the Love Trail was used in that incident. Later, Sejer drives directly to Askeland while searching for the trail leading toward Bjerketun, underscoring how the estates and their connecting routes form part of the investigation’s geography.

Johnny Beskow’s planned ambush

Johnny approaches the Love Trail from the school grounds during band practice. He pushes his moped the final stretch so Else will not hear him, then studies the path and imagines waiting in the bushes for her return. His plan depends on her taking this route alone: he knows she lives at Bjørnstad and expects her to ride home after practice on her blue bicycle. But he recognizes that she could choose the busier main road, or ride with other band members. The uncertainty briefly stops him; he then persuades himself that surprise and speed will overcome the risk of witnesses.

A caretaker interrupts Johnny’s wait near the school. He runs off, retrieves his moped, pushes it past the barrier, and continues along the paved path, searching for a hiding place large enough to conceal both himself and the vehicle. When Else does choose the Love Trail and is alone, Johnny is in the undergrowth with his army knife. He crawls toward the path and prepares to rush her from behind. The setting’s quiet familiarity is crucial to his design: he is counting on an established route, a predictable journey, and concealment among the bushes.

A route shared with other journeys

The path also appears as part of Theo Bosch’s return from Snellevann. After a frightening encounter that he understands as a daydream, Theo gathers his belongings and heads back along the trail. He tries to walk calmly, but cannot find a rhythm; he begins to run, increasingly agitated and convinced that something terrible is ahead. His passage gives the route a different narrative charge from Johnny’s calculated waiting: for Theo, it becomes a corridor of fear rather than a chosen site for revenge.

Across these scenes, the Love Trail remains an everyday connection through the area, used by people returning from school or the woods. Its danger is not inherent in the path itself. It arises from how familiarity makes a traveller’s movements foreseeable, while the barrier, forks, and dense vegetation give someone waiting there both access and cover.