Marike herself lives in a house she’s had built on a narrow strip of land just a few miles north of Dunker – land she’d purchased because it made her the owner of a rich deposit of the shimmering, supple, green clay she moved to Doggerland for. And it had been through her property purchase that she and Karen met eight years ago. Marike had announced that she would buy the plot at any price. Torbjörn, one of Karen’s cousins on her mother’s side and the owner of the worthless piece of land, had seen his opportunity to fleece the peculiar Danish lady. He hadn’t been best pleased when Karen, who had happened to be present, had stuck her big nose in and pointed out that the muddy field wasn’t worth anywhere near the ridiculous price Torbjörn was asking for it. But Karen had stood her ground and had also made sure a small adjacent plot of buildable land had been included in the purchase.

Granted, it had taken her over a year to repair her relationship with her cousin, but on the other hand, she’d found a new friend in Marike. And Marike had stayed in her new home, surrounded by forests and mosquitoes and with a muddy field as her closest neighbour. She digs the clay and processes it before bringing it to her studio in Dunker, where it’s turned into the sculptures that have made Marike a world-renowned ceramic artist.

She’s a good friend, Karen muses, but she has no idea what it’s like to live off a police salary. She decides to change the subject.

‘Are you almost done so I can call a taxi? Eirik will go nuts if we’re late.’

She knows she sounds brusque. All the talk about an overnight flat, a place to retreat to, has ruined the festive mood, leaving her feeling despondent. Now she knows exactly what she needs and that she will never be able to get it. A hideout.

‘Fine, go ahead and call,’ Marike says and resumes tugging on her tights.

*

Half an hour later, they ring the doorbell of one of the biggest villas in Thingwalla. The house, built for a wealthy shipowner in the mid-Twenties, was, judging by the size, intended to accommodate both a large family and servants. Two foreclosures and sixty years later, it had begun to fall into disrepair, an eyesore in the otherwise posh neighbourhood. Over the years, buyers have come and then quickly gone again after realising just how much work it would take to bring the house back from the brink. Kore and Eirik had won the bidding process with alarming ease and, at almost twice the cost of the property itself, had replaced the plumbing and had the whole house rewired.