‘Haakon hasn’t given Sophie Selhus a laptop,’ Selma said quietly, slowly and clearly, without letting go of Elise’s hands. ‘He wouldn’t have registered the machine to himself if he intended to give it to her. You’re going crazy with fear and grief, Elise. Sophie Selhus is an adult, she can probably set up a computer herself and anyway, she lives in an apartment in Vika. Not at her father’s house. Think about it, Elise. You’re totally mistaken. I’ll sort all this out, but you have to believe me. You’re feeling bad enough without …’

‘Is that true? Do you promise to …’

‘Yes. See you later. I must run.’

She was already five metres away, dashing at top speed towards her car.

THE FIXER

If Karsten Kvelde had worked for an American, he’d have been called a fixer. At MCV, his title was ‘security consultant’. In reality, he was Jan Morell’s private detective.

Most of what Karsten Kvelde did was legal. When, on some rare occasion, he was forced to stretch a rule or break a law, generally in the form of hacking, he was unusually proficient at covering his tracks. He had been employed at MCV for eight years now and hadn’t aroused as much as a single suspicion. Far less a complaint. Generally he found his work at MCV lacking in challenge, sometimes bordering on humdrum. He was a trained police officer and had a degree in business economics from Norway and in computer engineering from the USA, and had earlier worked as a security officer on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico as well as a refinery outside Cape Town. At the age of forty he had received an offer from Jan Morell, which, from a pecuniary point of view, had been impossible to refuse.

The assignment he had been given yesterday by his employer had once again been disappointingly simple. When he approached his boss’s office, as usual immaculately dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and with black Brunello Cucinelli shoes on his feet, he was carrying a leather documents case under his arm. It contained ten sheets of paper. He knocked on the door of the top-floor office in the south wing of the Fornebuporten building and entered when he heard permission granted.

Jan Morell glanced up from his work and gave a peremptory nod.

‘Did it go OK?’

‘Yes,’ Karsten Kvelde said, placing the case in front of his boss before standing with his hands behind his back on the other side of the desk. ‘Would you like a verbal summary?’

Jan opened the case and flicked quickly through the papers before closing it again.

‘Yes, please.’

‘Everyone on your list knew that Hedda Bruun had almost come into contact with a banned substance after a mistake made by the national team’s doctor at the gathering in Italy. So, they had easy access to an illegal drug bought over the counter. I’ve charted their movements, finances and any other circumstances that might be felt relevant.’