She took a deep breath and leaned back in the settee with her shoulders drooping. On the back of her left hand, a vein was throbbing just beneath the skin. Dark-blue and frighteningly distinct.

‘I said I didn’t want to talk to him. That he should get in touch with you. Idiotic of me, of course, because you didn’t know anything about this, but I couldn’t think of anything else. Then he said he was obliged to take the matter further. That it was his moral duty. That his loyalty was to the system. To the Federation. Always. He continued with a whole lot of …’

Suddenly she turned around on the settee and looked her father straight in the eye.

‘He came out with a lot of high-flown drivel. About truth. Integrity. Clean sports. That sort of stuff.’

‘But you didn’t confirm anything, then?’

He took a cigarette from the pack and headed back to the fire-place.

‘No. I hung up. And jumped off the tram one station early. Ran home. Checked the air vent. The tube was gone. And then …’

She looked at Maggi.

‘… Maggi came in and asked what was wrong. I told her, and she admitted that she had taken the tube. And spoken to Sølve. In good faith, Dad. In good faith.’

Jan Morell lit the cigarette. Took a deep drag, and coughed a little. He was holding the cigarette as if it was the first time he had ever smoked, at the very end between the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand. He was staring intently at the embers glowing amongst all the grey ash.

Silence descended on the room, a protracted silence.

Hege had never seen her father smoke. She knew he had been a heavy smoker from his youth, despite his interest in skiing, but that he had stopped all of a sudden when her mother had asked him to. Hege had also noticed that there was always an unopened pack in the sideboard, among the napkins and candles. A long time ago, when she was a child, she had asked him why. The answer was that it was to remind him of how stupid he had once been. This couldn’t be entirely true, since it wasn’t an ancient pack he had just opened.

‘This simply never happened,’ he finally declared. ‘There has never been some strange ointment in your sponge bag, Hege. You never emptied it out into the toilet. You never hid it in the air vent, and Maggie never found it. It’s not been burned in the fire, because it has never existed. Sølve can claim whatever he likes, but he’ll be left looking like an idiot if he divulges it without any proof.’

He wheeled around to face the two women, one standing pitifully at the kitchen door, the younger one completely deflated on the settee.

‘We deny it. Understood?’

‘No.’

‘What?’

‘Dad …’