It had taken them quarter of an hour to make their escape from Stølsveien. If it hadn’t been for the officer in charge recognizing her, they would probably have had to stay there all evening. A female officer, the youngest of all the police personnel that had swarmed on to the property in the course of only a few minutes, had taken Benedicte away in a car, leaving her murdered husband behind.

‘You drive really fucking fast,’ Lars Winther said, seeming both anxious and impressed.

Selma responded by driving so recklessly on the roundabout at Sinsenkrysset that she nearly scraped the side of a tank truck.

‘It was your choice to come with me. Try again, please.’

Pulling on the safety belt, he made another attempt to phone Jan Morell on Selma’s mobile.

‘Straight to answerphone now too,’ he said. ‘Do you understand anything at all about this case?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you explain to me what’s happened, then?’

Selma shifted gear and accelerated as soon as she had passed the speed camera where the motorway continued over a bridge above Nydalen.

‘Not really.’

‘Not really?’

‘Only if it’s all off the record.’

‘It is all off the record. Of course it is. This story exploded well beyond the remit of the sports section long ago. I really just want the lowdown on whatever has to do with the NCCSF, but maybe it’s impossible to separate that from …’

‘Everything and nothing,’ Selma interjected. ‘This case has absolutely everything and decidedly nothing to do with the NCCSF.’

Lars leaned towards the passenger door and stared at her.

‘Enlighten me,’ he said softly.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have the full picture as yet.’

‘So give me what you have.’

Selma sniffed, changed gear and noted that she was driving at 102 kilometres per hour. Without allowing that to make her apply the brake.

‘Both Hege and Haakon are innocent. From a sports law point of view as well. Neither of them personally ingested Clostebol, either by accident or because they wanted to cheat. They’ve both been sabotaged. By two different perpetrators, and with two different motives. One wanted to avenge an old injustice. The other wanted to save his financial situation, his work and his reputation. His whole existence, in other words.’

She shook her right hand gingerly.

‘I’ve got such a terrible pain in that finger,’ she muttered before raising her voice to continue: ‘The rumours about Arnulf Selhus, the ones you wanted to dig up at the time you didn’t get permission, were true. Jan Morell has held that fact over his head like a sword of Damocles for all these years. Until now, when someone knew how to make use of it.’

Lars appeared increasingly bewildered. He switched on the recorder function on his own mobile and held it up with a quizzical look at Selma.