‘Jimmy was fit as a flea – he’d never fainted in his life. Don’t you think that one of the gossipmongers around here might think it was just something your mum told the police so that they wouldn’t suspect her?’ He paused briefly. ‘Forget about evidence,’ he continued. ‘The real judgement lies with your neighbours, your local community. People will get ideas; they’ll think it was your mother who killed him, and you know as well as I do that your mum won’t be able to deal with that.’

I couldn’t get a word out. It was all too much at once.

‘I spoke to Susanne on the phone that day,’ Imo carried on. ‘Before the accident. She wanted me to pick Tobias up from nursery. She sounded like a madwoman, Even. It wouldn’t be hard to get people to believe that she went for your father in the car that day; she’d found out he was being unfaithful and no doubt tried to knock the truth out of him while he was driving. Maybe that was why the car veered off the road, because she was shouting at him, distracting him. Maybe she was hitting him. Maybe it was her fault, Even. Maybe it was your mother who killed him.’

Imo gripped my shoulders again. ‘That’s what people are going to think. You know it’s true.’

I felt like I was struggling to breathe. As if I was drowning.

I didn’t want to believe what he was saying, but deep down I knew he was right.

‘And one more thing,’ he said. ‘If I end up in jail, I’ll never get out of there alive. You know that. Prisoners don’t take kindly to someone who has killed children or teenagers.’

Another thing he wanted me to have on my conscience.

Yet another life.

My head ached.

‘There’s just one thing left,’ Imo said. ‘Just one more thing we have to do and then we can put this all behind us. And we’ll never talk about it again.’

I couldn’t stop weeping. No matter what I did, everything would turn to shit – with my mum, Imo, Tobias, me.

Could I carry on living after this?

Could I allow the murders of Mari and Johannes, Børre and Ole to remain one of those unsolved mysteries the newspapers would write about every now and then? Could anything ever be normal again?

I had to make a choice.

My family.

Or…

I thought long and hard before I dried my tears and looked at Imo. Then I nodded and said: ‘So where is he?’

79

NOW

‘So you decided to do what your uncle wanted you to?’

The prosecutor has come right up to the witness stand again. I look at Mum. I look at Cecilie, at Oskar and my friends who are sitting in the courtroom, closely paying attention to every word I say.