He had to have 600,000 characters by Christmas Eve. There was exactly a fortnight left until then.

Sølve stared in dismay at the word counter.

69,562 characters. Including spaces. That was all he had.

The text didn’t even hang together.

In the next fortnight he would have to write more than 530,000 characters, that is, more than 37,000 characters per day. Which was quite simply not possible.

Not for anyone. At any rate not for anyone in his literary league. On a good day he could come up with 2,000 characters. His record was 2,492, and that had taken him eleven unusually inspired hours.

He rose from the Kinnarps office chair and moved into the kitchen. The floor tiles in there, from 1934 and therefore lacking underfloor heating cables, made his footsteps resound on the bare, ice-cold walls in the overly large room.

Sølve Bang never wore slippers. He used indoor shoes.

And now he was incredibly thirsty.

The pipes groaned when he turned on the old mixer taps. He let the water run for a long time. Grabbed a glass from an enormous overhead cupboard and filled it to the brim.

When Hege Chin Morell was caught taking drugs, Sølve had been furious. He felt his entire book project was in impending danger, and with that the next payment due as soon as the following Tuesday. Statoil had, like all other sponsors, a strict drugs clause in their contract with the Federation. No one could overlook the fact that Hege’s drugs allegation might poison the atmosphere between the two parties so emphatically that the whole project regarding the deluxe edition ran the risk of falling through. So incensed had Sølve Bang been, for three days in a row, that he had completely forgotten to give closer consideration to how the contract between Statoil and himself had actually been worded.

He drank. Filled the glass again and drank half of it as well.

During the contract negotiations, he had used a friend as his lawyer. Someone from BAHR, one of the best known and most international law firms in Norway, an old school friend from St. Sunniva’s, who at the outset had cost 6,000 kroner an hour. When the invoice had arrived, Sølve had put the paper at the bottom of the dirty laundry basket before sending a text message to his friend, partly offended, partly hurt.

No reminder ever appeared.

His friend was an excellent lawyer. Brilliant, in fact.

Sølve slammed down the glass and returned to the drawing room. For a moment he stood thinking, half squinting at the curtain-less windows where December scudded past with sleet and gusts of wind. Suddenly he turned on his heel and walked on towards the bedroom. One wall was covered in practical, out-of-place wardrobes by the name of Pax. They had been left behind by partner number four who had been unusually fond of clothes. Sølve’s wardrobe was far less comprehensive.