‘I’ve really always thought they had things under control. Every single one of us, and of course, the Federation. But on reflection, it’s easy for anyone to sabotage us. After all, we sometimes eat in restaurants. We buy food. Even if we have our own cooks with us at the major championships, we’re not exactly kept in prison. If anyone really wanted to do us harm, it stands to reason that it’s incredibly simple to sabotage us. Through our food. Through what we drink. Our medicines. I can see that now. So I’m actually left with just one single question.’

She clammed up, waiting for a sign that the other woman was paying attention.

‘Who would be interested in harming you?’ Selma said. ‘That’s what you’re wondering.’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you come up with an answer?’

Selma pulled the two sheets of paper towards her and held them outstretched as she squinted at them.

‘No,’ Hege said. ‘I can’t fathom it. I’ve no enemies.’

‘Everyone has enemies.’

‘Not me.’

Selma’s smile was impossible to read. It was slightly lopsided and did not reach all the way to her eyes. Maybe she was making fun of her. Maybe it was just that she was as discouraged as Hege herself. She resembled someone Hege could not bring to mind. There was something about those dark, almost black, eyes and the mouth with the unusually wide Cupid’s bow, as if she had been born with a harelip that a true artist had put heart and soul into repairing. Her dark hair was coloured, in Hege’s opinion – Selma Falck must be at least fifty years old.

She reminded her of someone.

Someone on TV.

‘Racism,’ Selma said in a loud voice. ‘We have to go there, Hege.’

‘I’m not a target for racism.’

It came as an automatic response. And it was almost true. Hege Chin Morell had lived in Norway for all of the twenty-four years she had spent on this earth, apart from the first six months. Her Asian facial features had never been a problem. Not at nursery. Not at school, at least no more than one or two casual remarks her parents had prepared her to tolerate. She was far from the only adoptive child in the neighbourhood and school catchment area, and she had toddled through her very first ski lessons in the company of a boy from Ethiopia and a tiny little girl born in Colombia.

‘Not at all,’ she added firmly.

Selma stared at her. Cocked her head. Her eyes narrowed.

‘We live in tough times,’ she said. ‘I keep up with it on the internet, Hege. I keep myself up to date, despite my age.’