Of course he had tried to avoid roads with speed cameras. It had taken time. With the help of a program he had downloaded to his iPad for twenty pounds, he had devised a circuitous route from Oslo to Larvik. Some of the cameras were unavoidable. He couldn’t leave Oslo without paying a toll fee, so that would have to be left to chance. The speed cameras on Norwegian roads were not operational for more than a few hours each week, so he could trust to luck with them. He had driven long intricate detours involving trunk roads and secondary roads and the occasional farm track. A couple of times he’d been forced to turn around. The route he had chosen was far from ideal but he couldn’t do anything but hope for the best. In order to cover his tracks even further, he had used his mother’s old car. It had been stored in the garage with the number plates removed since her death two years ago, but fortunately he had kept the engine maintained. Practical work was his forte. DIY and tinkering with things. The registration plates from his own Honda were easy to remove and attach to the ancient Toyota. With the help of black duct tape he had transformed a three to an acceptable approximation of an eight.

The journey took three hours with a corpse in the boot.

The body was heavy, and even though he was strong, he couldn’t carry the dead man for any length of time. He wasn’t keen to drive on forestry tracks either. Vehicular traffic was more easily noticed by people who were out walking.

He had come down to Lågendalen. When he drove under the E18 motorway at Bommestad, he began to pay more attention. He turned right at the second roundabout. Passed something that resembled a miniature version of the Alnabru bridge, before he reached yet another roundabout beside a retail centre and continued west.

It was years since he had been here. At his old job, someone had been talking about cycling the Farrisrunden trail. No one had asked him directly to come along, but the chat about the ride was so enthusiastic that he realized he was keen to join in. When he arrived, none of his colleagues was there. A spur-of-the-moment sail in the boss’s new yacht had intervened.

He had cycled the sixty-seven kilometres, eaten dinner at a roadside café and gone home again with his bike on the roof of the car.