I was struggling to understand how the person in front of me – a man who’d been like a father to me for all these days, my friend all this time, too – could suddenly be so cold and calculating. Where did this instinct for murder come from? How did he know how to get away with it? It all seemed so cool and professional. I couldn’t speak or move.

‘So it was you who killed Børre as well?’ I said at last.

He didn’t answer.

‘Why did you do it?’

‘We haven’t got time for that now,’ he said.

‘Yes, we do.’

‘No,’ Imo said, emphatically. ‘We don’t. I’ve got a singing lesson here shortly, and you and I have to have everything done by then. And afterwards we’ll have to act as normally as possible.’ He stopped for breath. ‘In other words, it’s time for you to choose, Even. What happens next is entirely up to you. If you choose to help me, you also choose your mother, your brother, your family. Or you can throw it all away. You need to ask yourself something, Even: what is most important to you?’

He put his hands on my shoulders. I didn’t have the energy to push him away, even though I wanted to.

‘All this will go away, if you just help me with this last little thing.’

He waited until I met his eyes.

‘Ole will not be the one to tell the police,’ he said.

It was impossible to hold back my tears. I couldn’t believe that Imo was forcing me to make such an impossible choice. To make this decision at all.

‘All this will go away,’ he said. ‘And I know that you’re strong enough to deal with it. You’re strong enough to see the bigger picture. To know what we have to do.’

‘So you … think I should just keep my mouth shut about what you’ve done for the rest of my life?’ My tears were streaming now.

‘That’s exactly what I think, yes.’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t. I won’t be able to do that.’

Imo felt the bruise on his cheek, looked at his red finger, then his eyes pierced right through mine.

‘How do you think everyone will react when they find out that Jimmy was Mari’s dad?’

I shook my head – I didn’t understand.

‘What if someone out there starts to think that your dad’s accident wasn’t an accident at all?’ Imo continued.’ That it was your mother who lost it in the car that day? What if that rumour starts to spread?’

I looked at him with big eyes.