Vadheim leaned forward. ‘But, as you know, that’s the only murder – if indeed it was a murder – of someone outside the circle, someone who wasn’t in The Harpers.’

I wanted to say something, but he interrupted me. ‘In other words, Olsen’s death really could’ve been an accident, as it’s 367always appeared, but it might’ve aroused the old lust for revenge in Ruth Solheim. It might’ve reminded her that she still had scores to settle in Bergen.’

I nodded slowly. ‘It may have been like that. I just don’t think it was.’

His face twitched. ‘The problem is that even if she does confess, these deaths are of such a character that they’re as good as impossible to prove. Any lawyer could tear our claims to shreds. All we could perhaps catch her on is the murder of her father, Johnny Solheim. That one’s still so recent that we may be able to present forensic evidence. The others…’ He raised both arms. ‘No chance.’

We sat in reflective silence. We were the dragoons of death and Cain’s cannibals. We lived off other people’s misery and death and our accounts were long overdrawn. We should draw our wages in hell and collect our bonuses down there. In heaven they barely knew our names.

‘And you?’ Vadheim said at length. ‘Have you any other suggestions? Have you got any other solutions to hand?’

I shook my head. Not yet. I would have to talk to him myself first.

368

47

I deferred it for as long as I could.

After Vadheim released me, I went home and caught up on my sleep.

Then I had a reasonable lunch in a freshly cleaned café on the way to my office. I skimmed through the day’s newspapers, flicked through my post and listened to the answer-machine’s weekend messages: emptiness, silence and lost illusions.

It was five o’clock before I manned up, drove to St John’s church, parked in front of the old Sydneshaugen school, which twenty years ago had been painted yellow and bequeathed to the University of Bergen, and strolled, as slowly as I could, to the house where Jakob Aasen lived.

I mounted the stairs to the first floor as light-heartedly as if I had been on my way to the scaffold and when I rang the bell I pressed only one side so that the ring would be as whole-hearted as an embarrassed cough during a chamber concert.

On the other side of the door I heard the patter of a child’s feet, the door lock open, with some difficulty, and saw little Grete staring up at me, dressed in green tights and a yellow jumper, and with rosy cheeks and tangled hair. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi. Do you remember me?’

She shook her head, indifferent.

Behind her, Jakob appeared, but it was a different Jakob from the one I had been expecting. There was something high-spirited and enthusiastic about him that surprised me, and the way he 369smiled when he welcomed me gave me the indefinable feeling that I was walking into a trap.