‘But don’t hit send until the ferry is docking in Thorsvik. Check who her most frequent contacts are and send it to them.’

Another sip, just to stop the shaking. She looks down at the phone, leans forward and studies the lit screen, the red number next to the green phone receiver showing missed calls. Impatient, annoyed people, friends whose irritation will soon be replaced by concern. And then something worse.

Her most frequent contacts.

Presumably the people who love her.

‘We’re going to have to wait for the seven-thirty ferry,’ he’d told her. ‘There will be too many people if we go earlier. I’ll drive you down to Lysvik, but after that you’re on your own. And pull it the fuck together – everything’s riding on you.’

She checks her watch again. She needs to go down there now if they want to make it. Just do what he says, she tells herself. Write the damn message and then go down to the basement.

Stop thinking!

Without picking the phone up off the table, she opens a new message with a trembling index finger and starts to type.

Chapter 73

73

Karen stares at William Tryste, then down at the glass in her hand and then back up at Tryste again. She raises the glass to her lips. Tastes the distinctive flavour: whiskey, smoke and oak barrel. A peculiar mix of strength and mildness.

‘The post-war first vintage,’ he says. ‘My great-grandfather got twelve barrels as part of his deal with the Groths. Worth their weight in gold now. I found eleven of them in a tunnel leading down to the mine.’

He inclines his head toward the other end of the room and smiles.

‘What deal?’

‘The Groths forced Albin Huss out of the distillery they owned together. You didn’t think the Groths were always the uncontested whiskey kings of this country, did you?’

Karen ponders that for a moment. She’s pretty sure Byle never mentioned that Albin Huss, the old mining baron, had also co-owned the distillery.

‘So how come he gave up his share?’

‘Extortion,’ William Tryste replies curtly. ‘Albin Huss and Jocken Groth started the company together almost a hundred years ago. But Albin was in cahoots with the Germans during the war and when Jocken found out he saw his chance of seizing the distillery for himself. Albin had his mines and his seat on the provincial board and would have lost everything if it got out so Jocken Groth promised to keep what he knew to himself if Albin signed the distillery over to him. Otherwise, half of it would have been mine, you see. Instead, I work for those sanctimonious pricks.’