‘The ointment could quite simply be applied to the skin.’

‘To the skin?’

‘Yes. If the skin is grazed, the uptake would be more effective, of course. But that’s not strictly necessary. Lots of medications are intended to be absorbed through intact skin. Nicotine patches, for example. Voltaren in gel form. Quite normal. As far as I’ve understood, it’s not a matter of whether or not the skin is broken, but of the properties of the medication.’

She drew back her sleeve and rubbed her lower arm. She had freckles, he saw, pale freckles scattered all over her skin, even at this time of year.

‘An ointment,’ she ploughed on, ‘will have active ingredients intended to be absorbed through the skin. A pill is designed to be absorbed through the gut. Or the stomach. With broken skin, the ingestion process is faster, but as far as I could discover, not crucial. Besides …’

She examined her arm, found a little scratch, and pointed: ‘Most of us have cuts and scrapes on our skin at any particular time. Our skin is extensive. Our largest organ, in fact.’

‘So anyone could just … shake our hand, for instance?’

‘That would be some handshake,’ she said. ‘A bit sticky, I would think.’

‘But you know what I mean, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘This means that anyone at all could have done this. We’re not any further forward.’

‘No. We have …’

She wandered around the room, coming to a halt at a dark-oak sideboard just beside the kitchen door.

‘Someone in the NCCSF knows the story from Italy. There can’t be many, otherwise the story would have leaked out. I’m actually surprised it wasn’t publicized long ago. And even more surprised that Stian Bach is still in post.’

Jan put down his glass.

‘That’s the big problem with the NCCSF,’ he said, sighing.

‘What is?’

‘Jobs for the boys. Lack of transparency. It’s the same old gang that tramped around down there at Ullevål who now hold sway in the crystal palace they’ve built on the hill up here. Friendship cuts across everything. Vacancies are filled without being advertised. In the best-case scenario, they advertise them for the sake of appearances, but employ someone they already know anyway. A brother-in-law. A pal from student days. Someone they’re certain will sit completely still, without rocking the boat, and not insist on any changes.’

‘Dagens Gang has pressed them pretty hard for a long time, though.’

‘Yes, indeed. But it doesn’t seem to have helped any. You know …’

He clasped both hands to his face and rubbed until the skin was red. Shook his head, took another mouthful from the glass and inhaled deeply.

‘They let themselves be measured only by results,’ he said. ‘And as long as we’re the world’s top cross-country skiing nation, the rest of us will let them do it. Just wait. If we do as well in PyeongChang as everybody predicts, we’ll once again see a nation intoxicated by medals without any thought of accounts, organization or efficiency. The system is absolutely … wrong. It was a system error that led to Martin making a fool of himself over that asthma medication last year, and that’s definitely …’