He had discovered their weaknesses. Their greatest fears. Jan Morell’s was obvious to anyone who paid attention. Morten Karlshaug himself had spoken of his unbearable claustrophobia in an interview in the New York Times in 2011. It had been harder to find out what Arnulf Selhus was most afraid of, but rumours circulated about him just like everyone else.

In the end he had been certain.

They would sit down when it was all over, according to the manuscript, around the circular kitchen table. No one would have the superiority that sitting at the top of the table would confer. Not even himself. They should all be equals when they met. All four should have suffered the same loss, felt the same pain.

The manuscript was finished and everything should proceed as he had decided.

The last episode was a chamber play.

He couldn’t find the end. The pages had all got mixed up. They had slid out, he tried to push the pages together with his palms, but they were jumbled up. Became crumpled. Furious, he snatched at the papers, put them on the kitchen table, one and two and three at a time, in a mishmash strewn on the tabletop, and it was impossible to locate the final pages.

The perfect conclusion.

The manuscript was entitled Karma, and it was all about balance.

About equilibrium in the universe. About justice, about no one getting more than they deserved, neither of happiness nor torture. They should discuss things. All four of them; he had spent an entire week on the dialogue in the concluding section of the manuscript. It dealt with what they had done, insisting that no one could get away scot-free. With the interaction between actions and consequences, a logical argument of the natural world that was impossible to escape. He had marked the kitchen table with the points of the compass.

E, W, S and N: he had inscribed them with painstaking accuracy where the compass had shown where the letters should appear.

Karma.

Action. Deeds. Implementation. But primarily the motive behind the choices you made in life. The consequences that flowed from them, the response the circumstances gave to an individual’s behaviour.

His motives were noble. He wanted to bring balance. For forty years he had meekly accepted his fate. He had been robbed of his life when only seven years old, and nevertheless continued to exist without complaining. No protest. With head bowed, he had always done as he should. His duty. He was skilled at his job, but never said much. His life fell silent when everything went wrong, and remained silent as he grew up. He sought solitude wherever it could be found. He went fishing. Hunting. Always alone. He had borne his sorrow, accepted his loss and played as well as he could the cards life had dealt him.

His reward had come late, but it had been worthwhile.