I turned to Tvist. “No.”

He gave a sharp, fleeting smile. “There are some dangerous people in our safe little country. It is my job to protect your family from those people. Agreed?”

That smile again.

Elsa glanced at me. Was he threatening us? It sounded nothing like a threat. I wondered how protective he would feel when he saw the front page of Posten.

“All respect, but this is not a difference of opinion.” Elsa’s voice, her fury barely contained.

“No?”

“Your tactical unit’s boat sank; your armed officers hid in their car. These are hard truths, not opinions.”

“Well, we could argue for hours about the difference between a fact and a truth and an opinion. But by making his ‘truths’ public, your husband has done the very thing that he is accusing my officers of.” He turned to me. “When you put your needs before the needs of the nation you make my job difficult. There can be reasons why we do not wish your facts to emerge.”

“And then,” said Elsa, “you will smile and tell him that he’s welcome here, and that in time he will learn how things work, and that for the sake of the country he should keep his foreign mouth shut, because his story could have consequences that he does not fully understand.”

Tvist laughed. “Your husband is clearly not the only satirist in the family.”

Elsa scowled.

Tvist turned to me. “There is one unsettling consequence to your posting the material. The video has traveled widely. Been widely seen. A viral hit.”

Another pause.

Tvist pressed his fingertips against his forehead. “Cal, Elsa . . .” He turned to us each in turn. He seemed genuinely to be struggling to find the words. “We have for a long time assumed that your daughter was on the island. That Licia was the girl in the blue dress.”

It struck me that perhaps for once he was not manipulating us; that there was a reason for his solemnity.

“As a result of the video you posted, another father has contacted us, claiming that it is his daughter in the film.”

“It’s Licia,” I said. “Elsa spoke to her.”

“Before she arrived at the island,” said Tvist.

“We had texts,” said Elsa.

“From a phone that was not on the island. It isn’t Licia in the footage.”

The impact of those words: so gentle at first, yet so firm, like an arm clamping around my neck. We had spent a year believing . . .

“This man is a Chechen. He lives in London. He had no idea that his older daughter was in Norway, let alone that she was on the island. You will see she looked a little like Licia.” He opened a drawer, slid a picture across the surface of the desk. Elsa and I looked at each other. I picked it up.