‘This is getting too silly,’ he said. ‘We’re both after the same thing.’

‘Are we?’

‘Yes. We both find it pretty astonishing that the world’s best athlete on skis should die in this way. How many hundreds of kilometres had this guy put behind him on roller skis?’

‘Many,’ Selma replied. ‘And he fell a few times, too.’

‘Exactly! They sometimes fall. They hurt themselves. Get a few scratches here and there. Dislocate a shoulder, maybe. But die from their injuries? Come off it.’

He held out his hand again.

‘It hasn’t got a screen,’ Selma told him, as she picked up a stick sachet of sugar, tore it open and let the sugar drizzle into her coffee cup.

‘It has to be connected to a computer,’ she added. ‘It might even be password protected.’

‘Let’s try it, then.’

Lars Winther grabbed his shoulder bag, placed it on his knee, opened the catch and took out a small laptop. From a side pocket he produced a cable.

‘Shall we?’

Selma stirred her coffee, following the swirling black liquid with her gaze, all the while wondering what choices she had. They were getting fewer by the minute. Without a word, she suddenly put her hand into her own bag.

‘Here,’ she said, placing the wildlife camera on the table without letting go of it. ‘We’ll check. With one clear proviso.’

‘Which is?’

‘If there’s anything here with any significance for Haakon’s death, then I’m the one to decide what we do.’

‘I’m a journalist and it’s obvious I can’t enter into any agreement of that kind.’

Selma gave a broad smile.

‘You journalists enter into agreements all the time, Lars. You twist and turn whatever way suits you, piling on pressure, making threats and pulling the wool over people’s eyes. Don’t try that on me.’

‘Well, we don’t …’

Suddenly he checked himself and raised his hands in surrender.

‘OK. You decide. Within reasonable limits.’

She hesitated for a moment before nodding, still gripping the camera.

‘Do you know how it works?’

‘Er … yes, in principle.’

‘Passive infrared detection,’ she elaborated all the same. ‘PIR. The principle of wildlife cameras is based on the fact that all objects have a temperature that generates infrared radiation. That’s a kind of invisible light, you might say. A spruce tree normally has a lower temperature than, for example, a bear. Are you with me?’

He nodded impatiently.

‘A PIR consists principally of a sensor, a special lens called a Fresnel, and a circuit board with a relay to activate the camera. When something that is warmer than its surroundings is detected, then it switches …’

‘I get that. When an animal passes within a certain distance, the camera switches on.’

‘Yes. An animal. Or a human. Close up. I can guarantee it won’t start filming because a roller skier whizzes past thirty metres away.’

‘I understand that,’ Lars said, increasingly impatient. ‘Then it would whir and buzz all the time, triggered by cars and buses and cyclists and … Shall we link it up?’