Maybe Maggi ought to go straight to Jan.

But on second thoughts, that wasn’t an especially good solution. Bypassing Hege like that would make her look small. Her relationship with Hege was the most important thing in Maggi’s life, and she had never told tales to Jan about anything whatsoever. Not that there had been very much wrongdoing to tell him about, but on an odd occasion during all these years she had certainly kept one or two things from the strict, but loving, father of Hege Chin.

She needed to go to the toilet.

She had diarrhoea, felt unwell and was so beyond all hope of sleeping that after her visit to the toilet she switched on the TV. The volume low, almost mute, so that no one else could hear. At this time of night only Animal Planet had anything to offer. Maggi sat in her winged armchair, watching a programme about spotted hyenas in Tanzania. She had rarely seen such ugly animals and this gave her respite from her thoughts.

But only for a few minutes.

Maggi really yearned for someone to give her some advice. She had so few people in her life. Her sister, of course, in Wroclaw, but what would she know about such things. Maggi still kept in touch with Agnieszka, a woman whose acquaintance she had made when she first came to Norway. At that time they both planned to stay for a year or so, and then return to Poland to find their own apartment. A life of their own. They were both still in Norway.

Agnieszka was kind and generous, but wouldn’t be able to tell Maggi what she should do. Of course she couldn’t.

All of a sudden Maggi had a brainwave.

Sølve Bang!

He had been a dinner guest at Vettakollen a number of times. Praised the food and engaged Maggi in pleasantries spoken in fairly good Polish. He had studied in Warsaw for two years and was a Catholic. A good Catholic, just like Maggi; she had seen him several times at mass and on other occasions in the congregation at St. Olav’s Cathedral. Another time he had also spotted her and approached for a friendly chat. He knew a lot about skiing as well, since he was a VIP in the Cross-Country Skiing Federation. Maggi didn’t entirely know what he did there, but the fact that he had been Jan’s invited guest three times in the past few years indicated that they were friends. Good friends, she would certainly imagine.

Friends wished each other well, and Sølve Bang would be able to tell her what to do. The idea seemed reassuring, almost magical. She switched off the TV, went to bed and fell asleep almost at once.

THE CERTIFICATE

Selma wanted more than anything to log on to gambling sites, but contented herself with emptying Darius’s sandbox of cat dirt.