On a sudden whim, Karen switches to black-and-white and resignedly concludes that Luna’s charisma is only amplified by it.

Whoever came up with the idea was spot on; used in a thoughtful way, these amateurish photographs will demonstrate that Luna can be down-to-earth and ‘one of the boys’ while at the same time clearly on a completely different level than the people around her. Karen also notices what seems to be happening between two of the people in them. Shared looks, smiles, physical closeness . . .

If Luna wants to avoid having Leo Friis hailed as her new love interest by the gossip rags, she should probably avoid using these pictures, Karen thinks darkly. She rubs her eyes and leans back in her chair.

Dammit.

‘What are you moaning about?’

Sigrid pulls out the chair across from her and collapses onto it like a sack of potatoes. With her foot, she pushes out the chair next to her and heaves one leg onto it while yawning widely.

‘Nothing,’ Karen says. ‘Just a headache.’

‘Yeah, you do look a bit worse for wear.’

‘Hey, you’re hardly the epitome of youthful vigour yourself, missy.’

‘I’m fucking beat. But I suppose that’s how it goes when you study and work at the same time.’

And have a boyfriend who’s eight years older, Karen thinks to herself as she continues to click through the pictures. Absently, she says, ‘How are things going? With your studies, I mean.’

‘OK, I guess. I passed my last exam, anyway. Though in all honestly, I’m not sure I want to continue. I might drop out, we’ll see.’

Karen snaps out of her torpor and looks up from the screen.

‘My God, Sigrid,’ she exclaims, ‘you only just started. You can’t just give up straight away.’

‘I said I don’t know. It’s just that I’m not really the . . . lawyer type.’

‘“Lawyer type”?’

‘You know what I mean. Guys with overly tight suits and girls with bob cuts and pumps. There isn’t one normal person in my year I can talk to. I actually think they’re scared of me.’

Karen contemplates Sigrid. Her long black hair, dyed so many times it has lost any hint of sheen. Her pale, thin arms, almost completely covered in writhing tattoos. Her nose, from which a thick silver ring dangles.

An effective shield.

‘Good,’ Karen says. ‘That you scare them, I mean. Then you won’t have to broaden your horizons. What could be worse than meeting people who don’t confirm your preconceived notions, right? Wouldn’t it just be horrible if one of them turned out to be nice?’

Sigrid takes her foot off the chair with a groan and stands up.

‘Yes, yes, yes. Anyway, it’s time to move your laptop. I have to set the table.’

The last part is said in a tone that signals dismay at yet another exhausting task.