VANJA (cont.): … obsessed. About everything that is going to change. That the tables are turned, as he puts it. Everything is going to come into balance, he says, though I can’t quite grasp what he means by that. It’s frightening. I can’t have patients that make me feel afraid. That I quite simply can’t understand. Then I’m not doing a good job. I’ve offered to find someone else for him.

Her COLLEAGUE turns off the water, dries her hands and follows.

COLLEAGUE: Is he dangerous, do you think? Are you afraid he’ll do something to them? That he might …

Their voices grow fainter, inaudible and finally disappear, as the door slides slowly shut. The MAN emerges from the cubicle. He crosses to the window, carefully climbs out and vanishes.

WEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2017

The world had exploded.

At least Norway had. At exactly seven a.m., the news cycle kicked off. It snowballed once DG’s original headline story had been quoted and dissected, and attempts made to follow it up by all the other Norwegian and several foreign media outlets. Radio, TV, internet. Every channel. Even the alt-right forums and ‘newspapers’ that really were nothing other than blogs by conspiracy theorists, cleared space for the stories pouring out of the DG building in the early hours of this thirteenth day of Advent. In nurseries, parents sat engrossed in their mobiles without even trying to hide it, to the annual soundtrack of overexcited youngsters with candle crowns and glitter in their hair. There was hardly a newspaper to be seen on trams and subway trains: everyone sat hunched over iPads and telephones without noticing that the weather promised to be unusually, and very surprisingly, fine. The day had announced its arrival in the east as a narrow strip of ice-blue sky around eight o’clock, and by half past nine it was brighter than it had been for three whole weeks.

‘They’re only good if they have saffron in them,’ Selma Falck said after tasting the St Lucia bun. ‘This one definitely has turmeric.’

The first news that had broken was that Haakon Holm-Vegge had drugs in his system when he died.

‘Drugged?’ Selma said, holding the phone display reproachfully up to the man on the other side of the table at the Åpent Bakeri café in Åsengata. ‘A bold statement, if I may say so.’

Lars Winther shrugged.

‘Rules are rules. You and I can probably agree that they’re too strict, but if any trace of banned substances are found in your urine sample, then you’re …’

He cocked his head and gave a lopsided smile.

‘… drugged. That’s the way it goes.’

‘We’re talking about really microscopic amounts. How did you find out about it?’

Lars Winther laughed.

‘Yesterday you were after confidentiality for yourself, and today you want me not to give a damn about someone else’s? Nice try. Not.’