Tom nods, sucks at his tab. He already knows that, thanks. A dead body right in the centre of a building site is worse than a landslide or quicksand. A body means they have to call in the gamut of environmental agencies, police, surveyors, and God knows who else. They’ll have to exhume the body, obviously, but that alone can take ages. They’ll have to scour the site for other bodies, and it won’t matter that they’re presently building a house here – if more bodies are found, they’ll have to tear it down. Forensics teams will do their work. At a glance, he deduced that the body had been there a long time. It could well be from the Viking period. He has no clue about these things. But the historians might come along, and if turns out to be a protected burial ground or something of an archaeological nature, they could have their building permit ripped up for good.

Clive watches Tom progress through the full spectrum of oh bollocks. He lights another cigarette and speaks his next words carefully, and in a low voice.

‘This will destroy all our work. You know that, don’t you?’

Tom nods.

‘I’m not sure I’m ready for another house to be destroyed. Are you?’

Tom shakes his head.

‘So, what I’m going to propose isn’t sensitive. It’s not even ethical. But …’

‘No,’ Tom says, not quite sure what Clive is going to suggest, but it probably involves dumping the body in the fjord. Again, Aurelia’s corpse on the table washes up on his mind. Her swollen face, the missing toenails. He squeezes his eyes shut and pinches his nose, which has started to bleed.

Clive hands him a tissue in case he stands up to get one from the worktop and decides to run out of the house while he’s at it.

‘We need to tackle this quickly,’ he says. A noise at the door cuts him off. Erik walks in, his hard hat clutched by both hands in front of him like a man come to pay his last respects. ‘Forgive me,’ he begins.

‘We’re having a meeting,’ Clive says tersely, to which Tom lifts his head with the bloodied tissue poking out of his nose and signals for Erik to join them.

Erik feels awkward, but he’s been petitioned by the other workers to speak up. ‘The men,’ he says. ‘They are worried.’

‘I’m sure they are,’ Clive says.

‘In Norway, we honour the dead,’ he says simply. ‘We need to make sure the body is treated with care. Otherwise, it could be very bad …’

Clive sniffs the superstitious mumbo jumbo buried in that statement. ‘You’re right, mate. This could be very bad.’

‘There are laws,’ Erik says, changing tack. ‘The body is protected by law.’