‘So Sven Feldin, Sweden’s best cross-country skier, paid a hired killer who drove up to Maridalen in a car one chilly Friday night in December, just four days after it emerged that Haakon wasn’t able to travel to Davos because of a minor shoulder injury, and …’

She paused and glanced up. Vanja was sobbing silently.

‘… and knocked Haakon down and killed him?’ she said in conclusion.

‘If not him, then it could have been someone else. A Russian. Or a German.’

Now she was in floods of tears. Her head was bowed, her shoulders hunched. Her hair was greasy, Selma noticed, and was hanging lank on her shoulders. The lilac-coloured garments, layer upon layer to hide the fact that Vanja had steadily put on weight after her career as a handball player was over, made her resemble a withered hydrangea.

Selma approached her. Vanja willingly accepted her embrace: she put her hands around the small of Selma’s back and hugged her as she pushed her face into the crook of her neck.

‘He’s dead,’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t know how I’ll ever get over this.’

Selma did not reply. Just held her tight. Let herself be hugged, listened to Vanja’s weeping mixed with the occasional word she could not make out. The tram jangled at the roundabout. A driver blasted his horn. The placenta programme on the radio was finished, and Selma still stood there, holding her old friend, someone she had known since primary school.

‘I have to go now,’ she whispered, gingerly trying to loosen her grip.

‘No. No! Please. Stay until Kristina wakes up.’

Selma grew dizzy. From the unaccustomed physical touch. From the smells, both the scent of the flowers and the slightly rancid odour of greasy hair and stale perfume. She planted her feet further apart.

The news roundup came on the radio over in the corner.

#MeToo was the top story. Several complaints had been made about the behaviour of the Labour Party’s Deputy Leader. In addition, a Conservative Party MP was on the offensive about public money being spent on attendance allowance for the parents of gravely ill children. In the north of Norway, the Chair of Helse Nord, the health board, felt personally threatened in a conflict about the location of a new cardio-clinic.

The world-famous photographer, Norwegian Morten Karlshaug, has been reported missing.

Selma now tried in earnest to release herself from Vanja’s embrace.

Vanja was reluctant to let go. Selma tilted her head to hear the radio more clearly.

He was last seen in his home on 2 December this year. The following day, he intended to travel to a photo assignment in Mongolia, which is, according to the police, the probable reason for him not being reported missing until now. Karlshaug is mainly known for his landscape photography and he has had a number of photo reportages published in the well-respected National Geographic journal. Information about the case should be reported to the nearest police station.