Cecilie had got pregnant by my dad while she was married to another man and he was married to another woman. Her best friend.

I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t.

Especially after what Mum had told me about Julia, Ole Hoff ’s wife. Man, my Dad had really been a player.

‘I wasn’t even sure of it myself,’ Cecilie sniffed. ‘But Mari had just studied blood types at school, and she realised that her blood group couldn’t have come from me and my husband’s. It’s easy enough to find out, and I’m not sure, really, why I didn’t…’ She stopped herself, needing a few more moments before she could continue. ‘Mari had been working on that article she was going to write – the one about you and your father. She’d talked to a number of people, who no doubt said good things about him. He was so well liked, your father. She asked me about him, too. But then she … dug a bit deeper. I told her that he was a good friend of mine. A good colleague.’ She looked away. ‘I don’t know if it was the way I said it or if she could see the truth on my face. I’ve never been a good liar. And I guess deep down I always knew that Jimmy was Mari’s biological father. Which is why it was so difficult for me when … Mari and you got together. I couldn’t really deny her the right to be with you, could I? That, surely, would have raised some questions that would have been hard for me to answer. Anyway.’ She shook her head. ‘Somehow she’d found out what kind of blood type Jimmy had. She was cross-questioning me about it when Frode came in the room. He’d heard the questions, too, and … I … well, I was basically cornered by the two of them. So … I decided I’d better tell them the truth.’

My phone vibrated – a text – but I didn’t want to check who it was from. Cecilie was too distraught. I took a breath, then went over and put my arms around her. We stood like that for a while, then she pulled herself free and said sorry for being so emotional.

‘I understand completely,’ I said with a low voice. ‘Don’t apologise.’

It was easy now to understand why Mari had been avoiding me. How could she explain this to me? And where would it lead? What would I have done with that information? How would Mum…?

I thought about how my mother hated gossip, the way a story like this would be the talk of the town for months on end. Not only would the truth destroy her. So would the chatter.

I couldn’t digest the fact that Mari was my half-sister. The things I had felt for her. The things we’d done…