Selma wasn’t entirely sure, but Arnulf had obviously not dared to take a chance on talking his way out of it all.

The sirens were approaching.

Without hesitating, Selma grabbed the mouse. Clicked on the trashcan.

It contained two emails, both from Haakon to Arnulf.

Arnulf had been busy deleting traces of his correspondence with Haakon when he himself was killed. He was trying to save the situation when he suddenly died.

‘But why now?’ she whispered to herself. ‘Why did he wait for almost a week?’

The doorbell rang.

Selma unbuttoned her coat, grabbed the tail of her black blouse, picked up the computer mouse and wiped it clean. Put it down on the desk without touching it again, and used her own pen to nudge it towards Arnulf Selhus’s dead fist.

And left the room.

The police couldn’t be more than a couple of minutes away. She hurried to the front door and stopped dead when she saw who was standing in the doorway.

‘Lars?’

‘Hi …’

‘Arnulf Selhus is dead,’ she rushed to tell him. ‘He’s been shot. In the head.’

The tall man took a step back. He inadvertently lost his footing and his balance on the steps. With an impressive manoeuvre, he seized hold of the railings and managed to avoid taking a tumble. He stared at Selma with a gaze that confused her.

The man was terrified, she realized.

‘Not by me, you idiot!’

‘Who … who did it, then?’

‘I don’t know for certain, but I …’

An old burgundy-red Peugeot 206 stopped outside the gate. A slim, blonde woman in joggers, running shoes and an all-weather jacket emerged from the driver’s seat. She opened the boot and grasped the leads of two English setters that then scampered ahead of her towards the gate. When the woman caught sight of the two individuals on the doorstep, she came to a sudden halt.

Selma darted across the courtyard.

‘Benedicte,’ she said, with no idea how to continue.

She put her hand on the bolt that held the two parts of the gate together and closed it. Her hand was still aching, and both little fingers had turned dark-blue overnight.

‘Have you spoken to Arnulf?’ Benedicte Selhus asked, with an apologetic smile. ‘He’s still at home, isn’t he? He’s usually at work at this time, of course, without a doubt, but he was so pleased when I called him about a laptop I’d found that he came home to pick it up. He got a new one last week, you see, but it had disappeared. Did you get a chance to talk to him? Sorry I was a bit abrupt yesterday.’

She reached out for the bolt. Selma’s hand was still covering it. A stab of pain passed through her sore little finger when Benedicte tried to push her hand away.