‘You.’

‘Yes … me.’ An expression formed on his face, one of fury and fear, mixed with shame and endless humiliation. ‘Please don’t think I felt like a hero, Varg. All I’ve wanted to do is forget, forget, forget. I saw other relationships being destroyed by it. Anita left Johnny, Arild lost Halldis. I only told Rebecca several years afterwards, but strangely enough she stayed.’

‘Off and on.’

‘OK, in a way, yes. I suppose she felt she was owed something. But, that night … when I returned after … well, I can remember her underneath me, not breathing, not moving a finger … It was like making love to a corpse. When I returned and sat down and poured myself another glass of beer, Johnny leaned forward and spoke so loudly everyone in the room went quiet: “You’re a fucking bastard, you are, Jakob.” I looked at 373him, lost, as if it had only been me who … But he carried on. “Do you know who you fucked? Eh? That was your own daughter, Jakob … She’s your daughter and don’t pretend you don’t know.’”

Jakob looked at me as if he were telling me something I didn’t know. For the moment I could only glower back in silence.

‘My own daughter! I should’ve gone for him of course, but I simply couldn’t. I was stunned. I … don’t remember any more. Afterwards … afterwards everything went to pieces, literally. We all went our own ways and later … later we never appeared on stage together again. We barely saw each other. There wasn’t even any discussion. That’s how it was, as though we’d reached a tacit agreement there … that night … in that damned children’s room.’

‘But you must’ve guessed? You knew that you and Anita had…’

‘Guessed? Known? She never said a word. Nor did he, until then. A casual relationship, a couple of rolls in the hay. How could I know it would have such consequences?’

‘But … you’ve got your own back now?’

He seemed confused. ‘Got my own back? What do you mean?’

‘They’re all dead now. All the others. Apart from you.’

‘Surely you can’t mean that I would’ve…?’

I leaned forward on the sofa. ‘Well, didn’t you? Didn’t you kill them?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Varg. You know me. We grew up together, didn’t we. We were school pals, weren’t we. We shared our first bottles of beer, our best girls?’

‘I thought I knew you.’

‘Now come on … I’ve also been thinking. If all this is connected, 374why didn’t it happen until almost exactly ten years later, like some kind of anniversary?’

‘Mm, why didn’t it? I’ve asked myself exactly the same question, Jakob. Have you got the answer?’

‘I began to wonder what it was that happened in 1985.’

Faraway, I had a sense that the contours of new terrain were taking shape. Intrigued, I said: ‘Yes. What did happen?’

He lowered his voice and glanced at the door. ‘In 1985 Rebecca went to Berge Brevik and told him everything.’