She stood up again. Jan would normally have been annoyed by this restlessness. Now, however, he was concentrating so fiercely on what she was saying that she could have done handstands without provoking a reaction from him.

Clearly she was fit enough to do that too.

‘… it’s certainly possible to get hold of the stuff on the black market,’ she went on. ‘You can find most things there. I’ve done some cruising around websites from the weightlifting world, the less legitimate parts, and those guys seem to think that the stuff’s for wimps. Not strong enough, except in large doses, which are difficult to administer. Clostebol is quite simply not an especially suitable drug nowadays, with the control regime sport has to put up with. More than seventy cross-country skiers worldwide have been caught taking drugs since the legislation was introduced. Not one of them for use of Clostebol. Not a single one. Until now. There have been a few cases, of course, including that of a cyclist in Italy who had used Trofodermin on a rash. But it’s far from the most common substance found by the anti-doping authorities.’

The wood had burst into tentative flames. Selma used the poker to introduce more air between the logs.

‘But then, all of a sudden, we come across Clostebol three times in a short period,’ Selma continued. ‘First in the story from Italy. Then in Hege’s sample. And today in Haakon’s.’

Jan was following her movements with his eyes.

‘So you think the cases are linked? All three of them?’

‘I don’t think anything. I’m just establishing that it’s all a bit of a coincidence. And if we’re going to have the slightest chance of exonerating Hege before the Olympics deadline date, we need to chase up the few connections we catch sight of. We just don’t have time for anything else.’

Now Jan Morell also got to his feet. He moved towards the huge panorama window. It had stopped raining, and a grey strip of daylight was dwindling in the west. Beneath the apple tree, beside the sparse pile of old carrots, stood an elk. A bull calf, he saw, born this year, with distinctive nodules on its forehead where the antlers would grow when the animal was older. The mother was nowhere to be seen.

‘He’s so beautiful,’ Selma said under her breath, as she came to stand by his side.

She was just as tall as he was. They stood, in silence, both with their hands on their backs and feet slightly apart, like two soldiers on guard.

‘Why does no one come to her defence?’ Jan said in an under-tone. ‘Fight for her?’

‘I’m doing that. You’re doing that.’

The calf raised its head. Turned its broad muzzle towards them. Sniffing the wind, then listening before it continued to chew.

‘It’s so obvious that she hasn’t cheated,’ Jan said. ‘Such tiny amounts of Clostebol couldn’t make her into a better skier. Bloody hell, Selma, she was already the best! Why are people so … ready to find fault?’