Yngve looked over at the wall again. She wasn’t there anymore. He blinked a couple of times, quickly, in the hope that she would reappear. She didn’t.

‘Everyone knows how hard this is for you,’ Hanstveit continued. ‘But we have to do everything right, and do it fast. Especially now, when all of Norway is watching.’

Someone had said to him, after Åse had died, that he needed to talk to people. To his friends, his colleagues. You’re not the only one having a rough time, they’d said. Others loved her, too. Staying silent is a symptom of grief and sorrow. Of darkness. Helplessness.

Yngve hadn’t spoken a word about his grief to anyone, not even Hanstveit. He had shared so many of his anxieties with her that once Åse was finally gone, he’d found himself numb, unable to verbalise his pain.

‘I’m fine,’ he said and thought of the two people who’d been killed the previous night. The two children. ‘Seriously,’ he added. ‘It’s good for me to work. Good for me to think about something else.’

Hanstveit looked at him for a few moments. Then she said, ‘Just promise me one thing: let me know if this is too much for you to handle right now. OK?’

This is too much for me to handle.

He blinked a few more times. Searched the walls, the ceilings, for her.

You’ve got to help me, Yngve. I can’t take this anymore.

He swallowed hard.

You have to help me die.

‘I’m fine,’ he said without looking at Hanstveit. ‘Really. I am.

11

NOW

‘So it seems that things weren’t looking good for you early on,’ Ms Håkonsen says. ‘Is that why you wrote what you did on Facebook, after Yngve Mork had left?’

She lifts her chin and looks directly at me. I think about how upset I was after Yngve Mork left. I remember going back to my room to have a lie down. I didn’t know what to do. The messages kept pouring in. Whenever I looked at my Instagram account, there were pictures of Mari and Johannes. Among the R.I.P.s, the I can’t believe they’re deads, and all the I miss you so much, there were comments about me.

—Where is Even?

—Has anyone spoken to Even yet?

—I would SERIOUSLY like to know how Even feels about this.

—What if it’s him?

—I KNOW it’s him.

—I’m so going to KILL HIM if it is!

And there I was, trying to come to terms with the fact that Johannes and Mari were dead. It didn’t feel real. I remember wondering if that was why I wasn’t bawling my eyes out.