Ms Håkonsen is looking at me again with those inquisitive eyes. Like she thinks I’m lying or holding something back. Every stare, every question, somehow feels like an attack, both on me and on my family.

I realise that I don’t like her. I don’t like her at all.

‘So at that point you had already realised that your mother had a strained relationship with Ole Hoff?’

I look at my mother again. Even from a distance it looks as if she hasn’t slept in weeks. Which probably is true. The bags under her eyes have grown. Her face is grey.

‘Yes,’ I say a little more quietly than I intended.

‘But you had no idea why?’

I shake my head. ‘Not at the time, no.’

16

THEN

When I went back inside, my mother was waiting for me in the hall. One of her feet was tapping impatiently against the floor.

‘And what the hell do you think you’re up to?’

For some reason she was still holding onto GP’s lead. The dog came charging into me as usual. I squatted down to play with him a little.

‘I’m not up to anything,’ I said, stroking and scratching the beautiful little monster. He was making happy noises.

‘You were talking to him … that reporter.’ She made it sound like a dirty word. ‘Was he in here as well?’

‘What if he was?’

‘What if?’ Mum rolled her eyes, as though it was the most awful thing imaginable.

‘Do you have a problem with Oskar’s dad or something?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘OK then,’ I said, shaking my head. This was getting stupid, so I stood up and walked past my crazy mother, towards the door to the basement.

‘You, of all people, Even, should keep a low profile now that … that … Think of what…’

She stopped herself, but I knew what she’d been meaning to say. For my mother what everyone else thought or felt was always the most important thing, never mind Tobias or me. I just opened the door and started down the stairs, getting angrier by the second.

‘Even, you’re not going to your room now.’

I didn’t answer, just kept on walking.

‘Even!’

Finally downstairs, I slammed my door shut and sat down on the bed. I tried to breathe deeply, to calm down, but it didn’t help. I whacked my hand against what I thought would be the mattress, but it turned out to be the bedframe. The impact made one of the scabs in my palm split open, and before I knew it, there was blood.

‘Fuck.’