‘We’ll go over it all again later,’ she said, driving on in silence.

They approached the house where Hege Chin Morell lived with her dad and her Polish substitute-mum. The gardens grew larger. The trees taller and the fences longer. The clouds were so low above Oslo that Selma felt she could touch them. On an impulse she dropped her speed and parked on the hard shoulder about a hundred metres from the bend where Jan Morell’s extensive property began.

Without saying anything, she stepped out of the car. Lars Winther followed suit. They had parked on the south side of the road, where a steep slope led down to a colossal example of functionalist architecture. The owner had improved the outlook by cutting down the trees at the bottom of the plot. Selma stopped unceremoniously and looked across it.

Under the lowering sky, nestled beside the narrow, black fjord and surrounded by slate-grey hills, the lights of Oslo twinkled. Her city looked best from a distance, she thought. A big city that was easiest to live with beyond the city streets. She inhaled the clear, cold air deep into her lungs and felt an indescribable urge to sleep.

They both heard the voice.

Harsh, commandeering, but nevertheless so far away that neither Selma nor Lars could make out what it said.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Lars exclaimed, as he broke into a run up towards the bend.

Selma slung her bag back in the car and followed him without bothering to lock it.

‘Don’t come any closer than that!’ the voice roared, and Lars stopped suddenly in the middle of the road.

Selma went on. Up the hill, into the little cul-de-sac, right up to the tall Serbian spruce hedge that demarcated the Morell family’s property. She ran across to the two roughly carved obelisks that differentiated the driveway from the road.

And stopped all of a sudden.

Jan Morell stood in the middle of the lawn. With his hands partly raised in the air, like a reluctant villain in a Western movie. The voice called out again.

‘You’re going to say it. You’re going to say that you killed my brother.’

‘I didn’t kill your brother,’ Jan answered slowly in a loud voice, as he took a couple of paces forward.

Selma couldn’t see the person he was speaking to. She flipped off her high-heeled boots. The ground felt ice-cold through her thin tights, but now she could move soundlessly on the gravel that was laid in the driveway and in a narrow border along the entire hedge and around the tree trunks to prevent the growth of weeds. She also let her coat slide to the ground as she approached the most distant statue, skirted around it and crept into the hedge.