MAN: This guy here, on the other hand, will be tricky. But we’ll manage it all the same, you and I. Now everything will be paid back. We’ll regain some balance, Teddy.

The MAN takes the teddy bear with him and heads for the stairs.

THURSDAY 14 DECEMBER 2017

THE ABOUT-TURN

Six hours of continuous, dreamless sleep.

Selma had been confused when the alarm on her mobile phone chimed at half past six. Darius had slept in her old, wonky bed without her noticing. Yet again she decided she would have to buy a new bed, but then realized once more that she wouldn’t have time. Precisely an hour later, she was seated at a table near the back of the Åpent Bakeri café, with the whole place behind her and a latte in front of her.

Lars Winther came five minutes late.

His hair still wet, newly shaved and in a pale-blue button-down sweater with a white T-shirt visible underneath, he sat down on the other side of the table.

‘Don’t you want anything?’ Selma asked.

‘Came straight from breakfast. Anyway, the queue at the checkout was too long. What’s this about?’

‘You certainly get right to the point.’

‘Yes, sorry. I’ve got a crazy amount to do.’

He glanced obliquely at an enormous diver’s watch on his left wrist.

‘Fine,’ said Selma. ‘What’s really the situation at the Cross-Country Skiing Federation, then?’

Lars Winther put both hands on the table and pushed himself backwards a little. Smiled broadly. Started to laugh.

‘Well, are you serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘How are things there? Have you read any of our coverage in the past few years?’

‘Yes, that’s why I’m asking. I know what you’ve written. I also know that at any time there’s also a whole lot you don’t write. For a variety of reasons.’

The man suddenly grew serious. Inquisitive, she saw. His eyes narrowed slightly, and he leaned forward again with a confidential air. Even lowered his voice.

‘Of course there’s a great deal we don’t write,’ he said. ‘If only the public knew how much we have on prominent personages, government departments, organizations and institutions that we let drop. Maybe we can’t really crack the story. We know, but we don’t have sufficient documentation. Sometimes what we know is notorious enough, but the harmful effects of what we’d write aren’t worth it, bearing in mind the relative insignificance of making it public.’

He sniffed and ran a long, slender forefinger under his nose.

‘You also have all those stories that are more than spicy enough, but that despite it all come under the umbrella of private life and privacy restrictions. At other times we know, but have an editor who’s scared to death that we’re barking up the wrong tree. For example …’

He drew his chair closer to the table. The noise of chair legs scraping across the tiled floor assaulted her ears.

‘Arnulf Selhus, the Federation’s Director of Finance.’

Selma nodded.