Now, Karen Eiken Hornby is clutching a set of keys in her jacket pocket and scanning the room at KGB Productions. It doesn’t take her long to find him. Leo Friis is standing right in front of the stage, smiling at something the divinely exalted just said.

It’s only been three weeks, Karen thinks to herself, and yet, something’s different. Three weeks of him not making it home to Langevik. More and more nights spent in the studio. As though just a few weeks has made her forget what he looks like.

He looks tired, she notes. And happy.

Then he spots her and waves before turning his attention back to the stage.

‘I’m going to stop talking now,’ the woman in white says. ‘I just want to tell you one more time that, without all of you, this wouldn’t have been possible. Thank you for helping me rediscover my roots while continuing my journey forward.’

She pauses for effect and looks up at the ceiling while the congregation waits with something akin to reverence. Then she lowers her gaze back down to them and cocks her head with a little smile before finishing her performance.

‘The only constant in life is change. Never forget.’

She raises her glass and is greeted by raised beer bottles and wine glasses.

‘Wow, deep,’ Karen mutters under her breath.

But not quietly enough.

‘What are you muttering about? Not feeling starstruck?’

Without her noticing, Kore Traavad has sidled up to her and now he’s offering her a bottle of beer and a smile.

He looks even more pleased than Leo, if that’s possible, she thinks to herself. Like a cat with a freshly caught herring. Or like one of the co-owners of a music production company that has just wrapped a recording session with an international superstar. A star who, after avoiding the limelight for a decade, has suddenly decided to make a comeback.

She shakes her head.

‘I’m not staying, actually. Just dropped by to give Leo a set of new keys. I had to change the locks back home.’

‘Yes, I heard you were burgled. But nothing was stolen, according to Leo.’

‘What he means is that his guitar wasn’t stolen. But I had some silver heirlooms taken, if that counts.’

*

Nine hundred and sixty marks and fifty shillings it had cost her to change the locks on both houses. The locksmith had made her wait more than six hours before managing to squeeze Langevik into his schedule.

A quick trip to the superstore in Rakne had given someone enough time to break into both the main house and the annex. ‘I can’t have been gone more than an hour, hour and a half tops,’ Karen had grumbled to herself as she crept through the rooms with her eyes peeled and her ears pricked up, all too aware the burglar might still be in the house.