She had switched on the TV. The flat screen had given Einar a shock as soon as he had shuffled into the living room, but Selma had pulled some fine chicken wire over it in advance, attached with parcel tape at the back. It filters all the radiation, she had told him, beaming, and Einar had accepted the contrivance with more or less good grace. It was seven p.m., and the theme tune for the Dagsrevy news roundup was playing. Selma unscrewed the lid of a bottle of Pepsi Max and turned up the volume. The headline story was still the drama at the Norwegian Cross-Country Skiing Federation, Arnulf Selhus’s murder and the chaos surrounding the drugs tests on Hege Chin Morell and Haakon Holm-Vegge.

As it had been for three days on the trot.

A lot had already emerged. Until now, the police had been extremely reticent, but DG seemed to have incredibly good sources with knowledge of what had actually taken place. So good that Oslo Police District had finally recognized that they would have to take the lid off a little, if they weren’t to appear continually on the back foot. To date they had only used spokesmen who were lower down the pecking order. Tonight they had sent the Chief of Police in person, appointed to the post only three months earlier.

She was interviewed immediately after an attempt had been made to summarize the case, in a report that most of all resembled a compendium of the last few days’ editions of the DG newspaper.

‘The Police Chief of Oslo, Hannelore Lorentzen. Do the police now understand how this story all fits together?’

The interview was live.

‘Yes,’ she answered, looking the interviewer straight in the eye. ‘Of course we don’t have all the details, but we’re beginning to gain a broad overview. As it turned out, at the perpetrator’s house we found …’

A tiny hesitation, but her gaze was still steady.

‘… documentation that sheds light on what was planned and how it was carried out. And the motive behind it all.’

‘What kind of documentation?’

‘It’s too early to …’

She broke off, picked up a glass of water and took a drink. Her hand was trembling ever so slightly as she put it back down again.

‘There was actually some kind of manuscript,’ she said.

‘A manuscript?’

‘Go girl,’ Selma said, lifting the bottle of Pepsi in a toast. ‘Now we’re taking the culture of openness seriously!’

‘No point in keeping it secret,’ Einar replied, nodding, as he crammed cheese puffs into his sore mouth. ‘This stings like fuck, but it’s good!’