The sky is changing again in the East – from frosty white to a dark charcoal. Thin wisps of fog drift between the trees, giving them an eerie, milky glow. Leah would have driven down this exact same track not long ago. Did she intensely commit all of this to memory like I am: the dripping spruces, the brown-black pines, the meek, steely skies, the black lake at the bottom of the valley, occasionally glimpsed through the dense crowd of trees?

The phone vibrates and a voice says: ‘Your destination is on the left.’

There is nothing to the left except a wall of trees, but then I spot a wooden sign nailed to a trunk that reads ‘Bekkebu’ and next to it an even smaller track. I turn onto it and quickly realize I’m going to have to leave the car and continue on foot. Light snow begins to fall. There is a cleared, car-sized grassy area to the side of the track and a white Range Rover Evoque is parked there, tucked in neatly from the track, surrounded by mounds of hardened snow. I assume it is Leah’s car, and as there are no visible tire tracks in the patches of snow surrounding it, it would seem it has sat here for days. It looks as though it has been placed here from above by the hand of a giant, like a Lego car.

I turn off the engine and the lights and sit for a long moment in the deep silence of the woods. I feel a nervous flutter in my stomach, but refuse to indulge this kind of irrational fear. Walking alone at night in central Oslo is much more dangerous than being out here in these remote, untouched forests, though it doesn’t feel like that.

My phone vibrates in my hand.

Hey babe, all set up and ready to smash it, reads a WhatsApp from Eirik, accompanied by a selfie of my husband against the picturesque backdrop of Bergen harbor, a line of Høyre Conservative Party campaign flags snapping in the wind behind him. I smile at the goofy expression on his handsome face. It occurs to me that I haven’t actually let Eirik know that I’ve come here on my own. I open the camera and take a selfie, angling the phone to catch the snow falling against a backdrop of thick forest outside.

Impulsive road trip, I write. I’ve gone to Telemark to find Leah Iverson, long story. Turns out she wrote about me (!) so I’ve decided I need to speak with her and get her some intervention. Couldn’t make it up. Good luck & call me later.

I only have one bar of phone reception and have to press ‘resend’ three times before the message finally goes through. You’re not in Frogner anymore, that’s for sure, I think to myself and ready myself to step outside into the cold.