How? And why? I can almost feel your questions, across whatever time lapse separates us. How did I know? It wasn’t that hard. It’s pretty public knowledge if you know where to look. But I know more than them. More than everyone, including you, it would seem. Why, is arguably more interesting. I want to put you back together. I believe that if we build a picture and reconstruct what happened, then the white patches in your mind will become colored in, and you’ll be able to move on. Here goes.

Your mother is a delight, isn’t she? Not sure I understand why you’re cold toward her; at least that’s how she feels. She told me herself. It was easy to get her to talk. I must say she’s a talker, unlike you. It was difficult to find my angle of approach; you can’t just turn up on someone’s doorstep and get them to divulge intimate details about their family members without rousing suspicion. You need to establish a connection over something they care about, build a sense of trust. Finding out where she lives was obviously easy; I must say I love how almost everyone in Norway’s address is listed on 1881.no, from the moderately famous to the very wealthy. Bærum, huh? I suppose I should have guessed you’d grown up somewhere fancy. You have that rich-girl privilege; that’s the thing about you I find hard to acquire as my own. As you know, I didn’t grow up like that and it’s hard to fake when you don’t know all the nuances and cues of privilege.

Your house wasn’t fancy, though, and that’s where I lucked out. I spent some time on Google and discovered that the row of semi-detached houses where you grew up were scheduled to be demolished by the council to allow the new E18 motorway extension to bypass Sandvika. Most of the residents had accepted this and taken the generous payoff, but a few refused to budge, delaying the expansion of the new road. Your mother was pictured on the cover of Bærum Budstikke with two neighbors, holding a poster reading ‘E18 over my dead body’. Passion and fury – great. I had my angle. All I had to do was call her and tell her the truth – that I was a journalist freelancing for several national newspapers interested in speaking with her. She may have mentioned it to you – I even succeeded in getting them some coverage.