‘You could just have phoned,’ she said as she opened the door.

‘Hello there!’ said the Poker Turk.

He was holding up an old car key.

‘The Amazon,’ Selma said, sounding confused.

‘Yip. It’s parked in Hesselbergs gate. In front of number six. Just down the road from here. With brand spanking new winter tyres. I changed the spark plugs too. And the oil. The brake fluid. More or less a full service. Plus I installed a DAB adapter. The FM band is dead nowadays, you know.’

He gave a broad grin. His brilliant white teeth were all at sixes and sevens inside his mouth.

‘I realize you’re a bit short of money,’ he said, winking. ‘Pay me back when you can afford it. Or not. All the same to me.’

Selma tried to shake herself properly awake.

‘It can’t stay here in Løkka,’ she told him. ‘It’ll be stolen. Would you like to come in?’

He shook his head.

‘Have to go. I fitted an alarm as well.’

He handed her the key, which had acquired a fob.

‘You just press here …’

A long, slim index finger sporting two silver rings showed her how the alarm functioned.

‘And here when you’re locking it. Alarms aren’t terribly effective, but they’re better than nothing. And you’ll need the car now and again. A nuisance to pick it up from my place every time. Will I see you soon?’

Selma was still struggling to stay wide awake.

‘Sure,’ she mumbled. ‘Thanks a million.’

‘Anything for you, Selma. Anything for the best lawyer in the world.’

With a toss of the head, he thrust his hands into his jacket pocket and rushed down the little staircase, past the mailboxes and out.

KARMA

This wasn’t how the manuscript was supposed to end.

Not like this.

The man with the thick grey hair snatched up the sheaf of papers and hugged them close. Several pages escaped his embrace and fell to the kitchen floor. He bent down and tried to pick them up, but dropped several more. And then even more. He released his grip, and let the nearly 150 pages cascade to the floor.

‘Not like this,’ he said in despair, searching for the final pages in the chaotic pile of paper. ‘Not like this. Not like this. Not like this.’

They were supposed to meet up, all of them. In section twelve. The very last episode.

Jan Morell, Arnulf Selhus, Morten Karlshaug and himself. They were to come together when the three of them had received their punishment. People should pay the accurately devised, exactly allotted, and surgically precise penalty they deserved. He had spent two months measuring it all out – they would learn how everything could fall apart and the world go to hell while it still went on spinning as if nothing had happened.

As if everything was just as before, even though nothing actually was.