His teenage years, after Katinka came on the scene, became something quite different. He had spent some time in the sin bin at junior high school before they met, and knew little about anything other than playing sports. For two years he re-took subjects he had previously failed, and managed to pass his senior high school exams as an external student. That was in 1981. He was not accepted as a student at the Norwegian School of Economics, but after a year of study at correspondence school by day and working by evening and night, he ended up in Edinburgh. Only ten years later Morell Clear View, MCV, was the eighth-largest consultancy company in Norway.

Today it was the second-largest.

Jan Morell owed nothing to anyone. He had not reached as far as he had through inappropriate boasting, neither about himself nor others.

‘This is really impressive, Selma. As usual, you’re unusually systematic and efficient.’

Jan had spent almost twenty silent minutes leafing through the ring binder she had filled in the course of the night. Although her apartment was a dump, and he scratched himself at the thought of having been there, the block had at least splashed out on broadband provision. Since Google had given her nearly a million results on Hege Chin Morell, most of the work had obviously gone into sifting and sorting. Muckraking and golden nuggets, biography and travels. Rumours, myths and facts. Selma claimed it had taken her ten consecutive hours on the settee with the laptop on her knee and the printer on the floor. He was happy to believe that. Then she had taken extracts from articles that were worth something, and placed them in chronological order in a green, thick ring binder. In addition she had drawn a relationship chart of everyone mentioned on Hege’s own list. The vast majority of these were connected to the NCCSF in one way or another. A summarizing chapter was provided after every section, and finally a conclusion that ran to three pages.

It was unnecessarily long, and actually extremely simple: it appeared that no one really wished Hege Chin Morell any harm.

‘You arrived at that too.’

He carefully closed the ring binder.

‘Which means she might not be the intended victim,’ he went on while Maggi arrived from the kitchen and put coffee cups and buttered bread rolls in front of them.

He waited until she had set out everything.

Selma seemed uncomfortable, sitting there on the settee opposite, constantly pulling her cardigan more snugly around her. Leaning back, he entwined his fingers behind his neck and studied her closely.

‘Or what?’ he asked once the kitchen door had slid shut again.

Selma tilted her head to one side.

‘That thought had struck me too.’

‘That was why I was so set on having Haakon’s sample analysed.’

‘How did you manage that? In such a short time, I mean?’

‘I can manage most things,’ he said gruffly.

‘Yes, but …’