Elise didn’t answer. I said thanks and walked away, feeling the ice from her cold stare on my neck. Others shot glances at me as well, before quickly looking away. You haven’t done anything, I kept on repeating to myself. Be proud. Stand tall.

To keep myself occupied while we waited for the doors to open, I took out my phone. I saw that there had been a press conference about Børre’s murder. Apparently the police had found a piece of a dark-brown leather glove at the crime scene. Yngve Mork didn’t want to speculate about how that piece could have been torn off, but it wasn’t hard to picture Børre trying to fight off his attacker, maybe biting him in the process.

I had just finished reading the article when someone called my name. I turned. Ole Hoff was coming my way.

‘Oh, hello,’ I said.

‘How are you?’ Ole asked. He seemed to be studying my face. I knew I looked like shit after last night’s rendezvous with Imo’s tequila bottle.

‘I’ve been better.’

I told him about the drinking session – I wanted as many people as possible to know that I had an alibi for Børre’s murder. ‘I normally don’t drink that much.’

Ole shook his head and told me he hadn’t published the article about me yet. ‘I wanted to go through it again with you when you were sober,’ he said. ‘There might still be room for it in tomorrow’s paper.’

I thanked him for looking out for me. I glanced around; more and more people were arriving. Quite a few of them were staring our way, no doubt wondering what the hell we were talking about, and why I was even there.

‘When I met you at your house yesterday,’ Ole said, ‘you told me that Mari had first approached you because she wanted to write an article about you. About your dad.’

I looked at him, frowning.

‘She didn’t just talk to you about your father,’ Ole continued. ‘She spoke to her own father about it as well.’

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

‘She asked him about the accident, and he told her to come and see me,’ Ole said. ‘That’s why she had my business card. He gave it to her. I’ve bought three cars from Frode over the last twenty years.’

I nodded slowly, trying to think what all this meant.

‘Maybe she just wanted to know what I remembered about the accident,’ Ole said. ‘I covered it quite extensively.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Maybe.’

Mari’s parents had always been a bit cold towards me, no doubt because I was seeing their daughter. But at least Mari’s dad was interested in my football and what I wanted to do with my life. Mari always tried to stop him from asking me too many questions.