I wonder if Mum, too, will become a pariah after all this. I’ve told all of Norway how she slapped me, how I’d suspected her of killing my father. Maybe she will hate me for the rest of her life, disown me and drink herself to death, like Imo suggested she would. Or maybe she will want us to move again, perhaps to a bigger city where it’s easier to disappear and forget. I don’t know. I don’t even want to think about that right now.

Maybe the good people of Norway will think that I have it in me, too – the ability and the natural instinct to kill someone if my buttons are pushed hard enough. That it somehow runs in the family, and that you really can’t escape it, no matter how hard you try. I don’t know about that either. Right now I don’t even care. I just want to leave the courtroom and go home.

EPILOGUE

A few weeks after the trial was over, Yngve had another talk with God. It was during one of the many nights when sleep was hard to find.

He didn’t ask Him if Åse was fine now, because he knew she was at peace, that she wasn’t angry with him anymore for not assisting her when she had desperately wanted it all to end. He didn’t have to ask if he could see her again, either, because he still did, on and off, at random hours and in random places.

Instead Yngve asked whether God put any stock in Manchester United’s new manager. If He couldn’t provide them all with a mild winter for a change. He wanted the Big Man to keep a watchful eye over Fredheim the next few years, too, so Yngve could retire and not be alerted too often by the sound of sirens, the sound of misery and heartache.

He hadn’t got any answers this time around, either.

It was Sunday, and he was enjoying his newspaper. He was having a cup of coffee as well, his third one of the day. The radio was on. He was listening to a geography quiz, ’Around the World in Eighty Seconds’, and he rejoiced whenever he managed to answer before the contestants.

He took another sip and turned the page.

Could you put the kettle on, please, Yngve?

He got up and went to the cupboard above the stove. He opened it and stopped. Looked at the yellow package, still in its plastic wrapping.

He took it out and gave it a gentle squeeze, lifted it to his nose, astonished that he could still smell the tea through the plastic.

The phone rang.

It was Therese Kyrkjebø.