Then he, too, stands up, leaving Viggo Haugen sitting there with a surprised look on his face.

*

It’s twenty past seven when Jon Bergman and a yawning cameraman rise from their respective visitor’s chair outside the press secretary’s office.

Once they’re in the lift and Karen has pushed the button for the garage level, she realises Jon Bergman is unhappy. Positively bristling, in fact.

‘Are you aware we have a deal?’ he says. ‘We’ve practically lost our entire lead by now.’

‘What can I say? At least you’ll be the only ones who had the honour of interviewing me,’ she replies with a wan smile. ‘I’m heading straight home after this. The others will have to make do with the “desk jockeys”, or whatever it was you called them.’

An attempt to lighten the dismal mood. John Bergman is having none of it.

‘If you hadn’t ditched me down on Frisel, we could have done this interview right there and then.’

She doesn’t have the energy to explain. Telling Jon Bergman the truth probably wouldn’t make him any happier. Because, in all honesty, she had simply forgotten about him. And even if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have had time for him.

‘Can’t we just get this interview over with and deal with the rest later? Like I said, I just want to go home and get some sleep,’ she says instead.

‘What, you think you’re the only one who needs a nap? Do you mind if we head up to one of the police cars parked out back?’

She shrugs.

‘Sure. Whatever you want. Makes no difference to me.’

And while she runs through likely questions and the appropriate answers Stolt has drafted, the cameraman and Jon Bergman walk out through the garage doors ahead of her. She shuffles after. If they want her to stand in front of a patrol vehicle, she’s happy to oblige. If they think an outdoor environment ‘makes it feel like we’re at least a bit closer to the action’, as Bergman puts it, he’s probably right. That the interview is conducted in the bright morning sunlight in a car park next to City Hall instead of in the dramatic twilight of dawn on Frisel can’t be helped.

‘Well, I don’t think DTV is likely to make any more deals with you people going forward,’ Bergman says and holds a white sheet of paper up in front of her while the cameraman calibrates.

Anger flares up inside her. Taking shit from Viggo Haugen is one thing, having to blithely accept Jon Bergman’s attempt at rebuke is something else entirely.