Katinka crossed her mind, and she checked herself.

‘… second-worst crisis. Ergo you agree with me about most of what I’ve just said about myself.’

Still their eye contact was firmly locked.

‘But if you think for a moment,’ she went on, a bit louder now, ‘that I can’t lose my temper, and that I can’t speak my mind straight out …’

Her hand shook when she leaned over to pick up the glass. She didn’t care. She drank half the contents before she put it down again, and continued: ‘… then you’re terribly mistaken. And now I’m angry.’

She felt the trembling subside. Her cheeks were burning. Jan Morell sat there on the leather settee, more relaxed than he had been all evening, with something that was beginning to look like a smile at the corners of his mouth.

‘Smirk away,’ she said, fuming. ‘Be my guest. Sit up here in this pathetic, fading timber palace with its tasteless furnishings and acre of ground while you rot away in your sorrow-filled widow-hood.’

His eyes narrowed. Not much, but she noticed it. He drew his thighs slightly closer together. Hoisted himself up a little on the settee, but still maintained eye contact with her.

‘If, on the other hand, you would like to find out who sabotaged your daughter, and if you want me to tell you what I think has happened, and what might be about to happen, then you must …’

She let herself drop down on to the settee. Took a deep breath and slammed both fists on the table as hard as she could. A freezing pain shot up from both pinkies, all the way to her shoulders. The concrete hardly made a sound.

‘Bloody hell, pull yourself together! And answer my questions!’

‘OK.’

‘OK?’

Her hands were incredibly sore.

‘Maggi!’ Jan roared at the kitchen door. ‘Bring two bags of frozen peas!’

It took less than half a minute before Selma was sitting with a bag of peas tied to each hand with dish towels. Maggi tied the last knot and disappeared just as fast as ever.

‘He stole from me,’ Jan said calmly. ‘Arnulf Selhus. Exactly like you. And exactly as with you, I felt he deserved another chance. Just not at MCV.’

‘There seem to be a lot of people who steal from you,’ Selma said, her pulse stabbing rapidly and painfully on both hands.

‘Not so very many. And I always find out.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Sent me fake invoices. Sent them to the company, that is. Which on MCV’s behalf at that time is to say Finance Director Arnulf Selhus. From himself, to himself, but disguised as genuine debts. He transferred just over three million kroner to his own account by authorizing invoices that looked bona fide.’

‘What were the conditions?’

‘Conditions?’

‘To avoid reporting it to the police. I had to fulfil loads.’