One or two journalists had also been sent out at the crack of dawn. Selma could count at least four photographers, all keeping a suitable distance from the most distressed of the mourners.

It was ten past eight in the morning, and people had started to light candles.

She noticed at once that Jan Morell was standing in the innermost circle, wearing a dark coat and engaged in hushed conversation with Bottolf Odda. The information about Haakon’s drugs test had obviously not broken. The media was still overflowing with discussion of Hege Chin’s positive result, but Haakon’s tragedy had put a certain damper on the most outrageous coverage.

It was significant that no one approached Selma. She had been tempted not to come, but this would have been so obvious it would have given people even more to talk about.

Selma certainly didn’t want to be a subject of speculation any longer.

Gracefully manoeuvring herself into the crowd, she carefully laid down her roses and gave Vanja and Kristina each a hug. Elise seemed preoccupied by lighting a candle, and Selma nodded to her parents with as much sympathy as she could muster, before withdrawing just as quickly back into the throng.

The number 51 bus approached from the north. It reduced its speed, which already could scarcely be in excess of twenty kilometres per hour. The driver must have had prior information about the melancholy gathering, because he stopped at a respectful distance. Selma retreated even further from the semicircle of people. Now she was standing on the side opposite the spot where Haakon had somehow plunged into the bushes, down into the stream, struck his head and apparently drowned. She turned and peered down into the ditch. In the stream, which on this side disappeared into a concrete pipe beneath the road, ice had formed in several places like a crystal-clear lid above the still-trickling water. The slope up into the forest was steeper on this side.

Selma spotted something attached to a tree up there. Smaller than a bird box, larger than a box of long matches. A sudden thought made her curious to take a closer look at the device. She regretted having changed on the bus from her studded shoes to her leather boots. Nonetheless she carefully put down her shoulder bag and took a step down into the ditch. With an energetic leap she reached the other side. She turned around for a second. No one had noticed her: everyone’s attention was focused on the ceremony on the other side, where a man’s voice had started to speak. Shout, almost, though because of that she could not recognize the voice.

She sprinted the thirty metres or so to the device on the tree trunk. It was exactly what she had hoped for.

A wildlife camera.