I went over to her. ‘Hi. Thanks for last—’

She interrupted me: ‘Not now, Varg. We can talk later.’ Her eyes looked past me, tense and expectant.

I turned round and followed her gaze. Jakob was coming 325towards us, greeting left and right as he went.

From the corner of my eye I saw some more familiar faces. Both Gro and Kari were here. My gaze rested on Kari, and a wary smile spread across her face, then she looked down.

Jakob came over to us. When he said hello to Rebecca I seemed to see them from a great distance, like two figures in a cartoon, with frozen breath around their faces and empty speech bubbles coming from their mouths.

‘Hello, Jakob,’ Rebecca said.

‘Hi,’ Jakob said with a strangely pinched countenance.

‘How … are things?’

‘G-good,’ Jakob said, then added: ‘Kind of.’

I coughed and they turned to me as though they had forgotten I was there.

Jakob smiled wryly and said to Rebecca: ‘Varg and I have … met up, Rebecca.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘I suppose you have.’

There was a silence between us. A total silence.

I gestured with my hand and stepped aside. ‘I just have to … Bye.’

I walked over to Belinda Bruflåt. She looked at me with wet lips and dry eyes, still unsure about her role. Beside her stood Stig Madsen, looking as if he were her manager and I were a potential challenger for his post. I nodded briefly to him and turned to Belinda. ‘Is Ruth Solheim here?’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t play games with me. I know you know her. Can you see her anywhere?’

She scanned the growing crowd of people. Then she shook her head.326

‘But you know where she…?’

‘We can talk later,’ she said, heading for the entrance without a backward glance.

Stig Madsen followed her, looking at me with barely concealed triumph.

Alright, if that’s how you want it, let’s talk later, all of us. Perhaps there’ll be another occasion in the not too distant future. At someone else’s funeral.

Vegard Vadheim stood at the top step of the stairs leading to the cemetery, as motionless as a gravestone. His eyes were sweeping over the gathering of mourners, scrutinising face after face. He didn’t miss much.

The only people I couldn’t see, of those I had met in recent days, were old fru Kløve, for self-explanatory reasons, and Halldis Heggøy, possibly for religious reasons.

In other words, there was a great possibility that the person who had killed Johnny Solheim – and perhaps also Harry Kløve, Arild Hjellestad and Jan Petter Olsen – was present at the funeral.

In which case the murderer was among us. But who was he … or she? And when would Ruth Solheim show up?

The chapel doors opened and the crowd flocked around the entrance. I noticed that Rebecca and Jakob had found seats on either side of the aisle. I sat down next to Jakob.

He glanced at me and muttered: ‘I have to talk to you, Varg. Afterwards.’