‘I don’t remember hearing about this. I would have written it in my diary…’ I untangle myself from Eirik’s arms and go to get my diary from my handbag in the hallway. I’ve been looking forward to this weekend, to us finally having some uninterrupted time together. But there it is – Eirik Bergen it says, on Saturday 31st. I can’t help the tears that pool in my eyes again, but immediately feel stupid. I feel unsettled and anxious about being here alone for so many days. What if Anton gets questioned by the police but released because of a lack of evidence and comes after me?

‘Kristina, I told you about this,’ says Eirik, pulling me back toward him. I nod and bury my face in the warm crook of his neck. ‘You know it’s not for nothing. I hate leaving you, but it’s only for a few days. I’ll be back before you even realize I’m gone.’

‘Sorry. I just want one whole weekend together. It’s October and I don’t think we’ve had that this year at all, not once. In over ten months.’

‘I know. It should calm down a little soon.’

‘When? When you’re prime minister?’

Eirik chuckles softly and kisses the inside of my palm.

‘I don’t want you to go.’

‘Shhh. I’m here now. Besides, didn’t you tell me you have a boozy brunch with some girlfriends tomorrow? That will keep you busy. And maybe you can go back to see Camilla and the kids.’

He’s right, I’ve made brunch plans with my university friends, and just the thought of it makes me feel exhausted. I’ll have to think of an excuse, but for now, I try to relax into his embrace, to enjoy the way his fingers trace shapes across my collarbone and the hollows of my throat, but my thoughts feel disjointed and dense, layered one on top of each other, like the many layers of paint in Elisabeth’s artwork, made to look like a single color at first sight.

18

Elisabeth, June

Elisabeth gets up and stands a while at the window. It’s a cool, overcast early-summer night, and though she can see no moon or stars, the sky is a pleasant light dove gray, even at midnight. Villa Vinternatt is quiet but it has the comforting hum of sleeping people gathered together. At the end of the vast sweep of garden, a pond. Then thick woods. Beyond the woods, the still and silvery Oslofjord, caught between two narrow headlands like a giant rock pool at low tide.