Selma had taken a night’s respite from herself, for the first time in almost four weeks. She was still humming an old hit song when she lay down. She had money. Far more money than yesterday. She was doing well. On the front foot. And best of all, she thought as she closed her eyes, was that she had woken from something that only yesterday had been heading for the skids.

That was good, because now she knew precisely how she was going to start searching for the explanation as to why Hege Chin Morell had submitted a positive drugs sample without having done anything wrong. It was a night like this she had needed, and as soon as first light, she would seriously begin on the assignment Jan Morell had given her.

With a smile, it crossed her mind that she was well into overtime.

Then she drifted off to sleep and did not wake until nine hours had elapsed.

THE DELUXE EDITION

The apartment was enormous, but that was really all it had going for it. At least if you discounted the address, which was also a plus factor.

Sølve Bang had inherited the place, all 200 square metres of it, from a great-aunt in 1997. Gudrun Bang had been a librarian all her life, and the literary halo on her nephew’s son shone even more brightly at that time, if that were possible. The inheritance was a welcome solution to the still relatively young man’s chronically catastrophic financial situation, but caused a rift between him and his siblings so wide that no one had attempted to patch things up ever since. As both his parents were dead and his brother had lived in the USA following a student exchange visit at senior high school, Sølve was as good as on his own. Partners had come and gone six times since the time when the apartment in Thomas Heftyes gate was furnished throughout in the Biedermeier style.