I winked at her mother, although she didn’t seem to react. Then I turned my attention back to Ingeborg.

She had opened her eyes. ‘Did someone say something?’ Her voice was weak but distinct.

I leaned into her field of vision. ‘Yes, fru Kløve. It was me. Varg Veum. I was a childhood friend of your son, Harry.’ By now I had acquired quite a few childhood friends.

‘Harry? Is that you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m a friend of Harry’s. My name’s Varg.’

‘What was that you said?’

I looked away. Behind me I heard a derisive snort.

On Ingeborg’s bedside table there was a half-full glass of water. I leaned closer. ‘Would you like some water?’

Suddenly her head was clear. ‘Yes, please.’

I held the glass to her thin, cracked lips.

One of her hands, as light as an old avian claw you might find in the loft, rested on the back of mine, and she drank in small sips, just like a bird.213

‘He’s dead, Harry is,’ she said.

I nodded. ‘Yes, fru Kløve. I’m afraid he is.’ I tried to put as much compassion as I could into my words, as though it had just happened.

‘He got a picture of an angel in the post, and then he died.’

I looked at her. ‘What did you say? What did he get?’

She stared straight ahead. ‘A picture of an angel. And then he died.’

‘A picture of an angel?’

She attempted a nod.

‘What do you mean, a picture of an angel?’

‘A picture of an angel,’ she repeated, as though there were only one kind.

‘He received a picture of an angel,’ I said. ‘And then he died?’

She nodded. ‘A black cross means dead. Harry’s dead. It was in the paper. A black cross.’

‘The death notice, do you mean?’

She smiled, happy that I understood. ‘The death notice. He’s dead now, Harry is.’

‘Completely dotty,’ I heard behind me. ‘That’s how they go.’

I spun round. ‘And what about people like you? Who are completely dotty, but still upright?’

She snapped for air and looked even more like a pike.

I turned back to Ingeborg. Her eyelids were closing. But there was still a glint of life in the narrow slits. Quietly, she sang an old Bergen song to herself: ‘Give a Shilling for a Sewing Machine’: ‘In Strangehagen at number eighteen – lives the love of my life – she has no clothes to go out in during the day – so she’s only seen at night…’ The rest was lost in humming, which faded, then stopped, at about the same time as her eyes closed.

Soon afterwards she was breathing regularly, sound asleep.214

In the corridor outside, the clatter of crockery and metal containers was getting louder and louder.

I looked at Ingeborg Kløve sadly. Once, at the start of the century she had been a small girl running over cobblestones in a lace-collared dress, plaits dancing behind her back, happily bounding up the steps to home, muscles still developing, fat that would come at some point. Once, between the great wars, she had been a young woman in peak bloom, full breasts, alluring hips, sensual kisses and passionate embraces. Later, proudly, she carried her son, first in her womb, then at her bosom and in her arms, until he became too heavy for her, grew up, outgrew her, and she had to take his arm in hers to have any contact when they were out on a Sunday walk in Fjellveien or wherever they might have gone, Harry Kløve and his mother.