I just want it to be over. I can tell that this is getting to my mother as well. Her eyes are glazed, and she’s staring straight ahead. My brother is not doing so well either. His eyes look vacant, as they have done throughout my testimony.

We haven’t talked about Imo in our house since he killed himself. Not a single time – not on that terrible day, or on any of the days after. Mum started to cry when she heard, but then she controlled herself – it was like she’d flicked a switch. After that it was all about taking care of Tobias, doing everything so that he wouldn’t get upset. The path of least resistance.

I, on the other hand, thought a lot about my uncle in the days that followed his death. Bang, and it was over. Bang, and he was gone. He didn’t have to go to prison. He didn’t have to look my mother or anyone else in the eye. Didn’t have to live with what he’d done and what he’d tried to get me to do.

Ms Håkonsen waits until I turn my head towards her before asking her next question.

‘Understandably, the police weren’t able to get a confession directly from your uncle, but they had the microphone case and they had your uncle’s leather gloves, which matched the piece they’d found under Fredheim Bridge after Børre Halvorsen’s murder. And they had witness statements from both yourself and from Ole Hoff. So it was then possible for the inhabitants of Fredheim, and the people in the rest of Norway, to draw a line and put the murders behind them.’

She takes a small pause in the build up to her question. ‘At what point did you realise something wasn’t right?’

I seek out Ole Hoff in the audience. I spot him two rows behind Yngve Mork. I hunch my shoulders then let them drop again.

Then I say: ‘It was after the funeral.’

83

THEN

Mari was buried on a Thursday.

It was a cold, damp day. Light snow had fallen over night. It looked like someone had sprinkled the dark hole in the ground and the fresh sand beside it with icing sugar.

By the time we had got to her funeral, both Børre and Johannes had already been laid to rest. I was glad, because the services for them had numbed me a little. I had heard the sad songs. I had listened to the priest’s voice and what he’d had to say about God and worship and what we needed to do in times of despair. So as we all stood there grieving for my ex-girlfriend, my half-sister, I tuned out a little bit. Maybe it was a way for me to deal with the finality of her death and everything that had happened since.