Selma Falck had rounded off the weekend by going for a walk with Darius. An embarrassing idea. Someone or other, probably Anine, had stuffed a cat harness and neon-coloured chain into one of the boxes. It had taken Selma an eternity to get the contraption on the recalcitrant animal. Under cover of darkness, with a woollen hat and scarf covering half her face, she had carried the cat under her arm down to Sofienberg Park. There, she had let it toddle around for twenty uncomfortable minutes before dragging it unwillingly behind her back home again. A stray Alsatian had almost acquired an evening snack along the way, but Selma had surprised herself by delivering a well-aimed kick to the mutt’s nose.

Suitably hard.

After sleeping all day it was pointless going to bed. Her elation after the night of poker playing was dwindling, and Selma was far from being as cocksure as she’d been when she fell asleep. Her phone displayed six missed calls. Five of them seemingly from Vanja and Kristine. She ought to call them back. Jan Morell had also tried to contact her.

The only person she wanted to contact was Einar.

He was asleep when she approached, but woke before she reached him.

‘Around …’

Einar Falsen scrambled up from lying on his side in the cardboard box between the boulders under the Sinsen interchange. He tilted his head and ran his mitten over his face.

‘Half past twelve,’ he said firmly. ‘I can tell by the sound of the traffic.’

It was in fact twenty-five minutes to one, and Selma sat down breathlessly. She had been running. Clouds of condensation wafted around her when she took off her running top. She pulled out a folded down jacket from a small Camelbak rucksack, along with a thermos and a blue lunchbox. She poured coffee into both of their plastic mugs and opened the lunchbox before placing it on a stone in front of Einar.

‘A midnight snack.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I’ve made a list. And also some choices. Thought I could discuss them with you.’

Einar sat up, leaning on a rock, still enveloped in his sleeping bag. A rank odour of sweat with a hint of urine was thrown off by the rifle-green sleeping bag when he pulled it up to his waist as he grabbed a sandwich with butter and brown cheese.

‘Good. What kind of list?’

‘Of possible perpetrators.’

‘Perpetrators? Have you already established that the girl was sabotaged? What was it I said to you about an open mind? Guilt, innocence. Sabotage, accident, deliberate attempt at cheating. You can never decide in advance, Mariska. I told you so.’

He attacked the sandwich as if he intended to murder it.

‘Of course.’

Selma tried to find a comfortable position on the jagged stones. It was never easy.