‘Shush,’ he always said, as a joke. ‘I’m talking to the man who might be my son-in-law here.’

That always made her hot and bothered.

‘Are you working on any special angle?’ I asked Ole.

‘Well’, he said. ‘I guess I’m just trying to make sense of it all, like everyone else.’

I wondered what he thought of the ‘Chance Victim’ article in which Oskar had been interviewed. I didn’t ask, though, as I spotted my former best friend coming towards the handball court building with Kaiss and Fredrik. I turned away from them.

‘How’s your mother?’ Ole asked me.

‘Same as usual’, I said. ‘Hard to say what goes on in her mind sometimes.’ I smiled briefly.

Ole nodded. ‘I’ll see you inside,’ he said. ‘And maybe I’ll call you later, if that’s alright.’

‘Sure.’

At 10.45 the door to the handball court opened. I waited until I was sure my friends had gone in before joining the queue myself. I felt a push in my back. At first I thought it was just because of how squashed it was. Then it happened again. And again. Then someone threw something at the back of my head, possibly a small stone. It didn’t hurt, but I felt it. I turned around to face the people behind me. No one looked at me directly.

I turned back again. Soon someone else threw something at me. Someone coughed behind me, too, and I was sure I heard the word ‘murderer’ muttered at the same time. I decided to ignore it. Didn’t want to make a scene. But I could hear whispering, and I felt like running away. Hiding. Again I tried to steel myself and shut everything out. I kept looking straight ahead until I was finally inside.

In the middle of the handball court two A4-sized photographs of Mari and Johannes had been pinned on each side of a lectern. That was when it finally dawned upon me. It was true. Mari was dead. I just stood there staring at her picture. It was a school photo. She wore her hair in a ponytail, had her glasses on and her smile was a bit stiff. I felt something hard in my throat. It became difficult to breathe.

I decided to look at Johannes instead. He was posing, as he always did – like the rock star he was. I’d actually envied Johannes a bit, because he was so bloody good at everything. He was the natural centre of attention wherever he went.