‘Two reasons. When I first brought him on board, I didn’t know about his links with the OP. When I found out he was stealing from the warehouse in their name, I confronted him. I didn’t take me long to figure out the OP had nothing to do with it, but Gabriel still posed a serious security risk.’

‘You figured he would try to con you, too?’

William Tryste doesn’t seem to hear her question.

‘He was getting nervous,’ he continues. ‘Apparently one of the OP boys had found out about the stealing and beaten him up. There was an imminent risk he would start blabbing about our plans to get back in their good graces. Or even worse, he might promise to get them involved in the company.’

Karen says nothing.

‘And as if that wasn’t bad enough,’ Tryste continues, ‘he’d also got it in his head that he had to confront Björn Groth about killing Fredrik. I explained to him that the best thing we could do was to lie low, that it was only a matter of time before Björn was caught, that all the evidence pointed to him and that we should let the police do their job. But I could tell at the New Year’s party he wasn’t going to be able to keep his mouth shut. Simply put, the guy was a ticking time bomb.’

So you had to act quickly, Karen thinks to herself. If Gabriel started to talk, there was a significant risk your name would eventually come up.

She stares at him, unable to hide her revulsion.

‘You forgot something,’ she says. ‘If Fredrik’s research becomes public, won’t it be just as hard for you to get the expansion approved? Then the provincial board’s concern about Baudoinia would be your headache, right?’

‘Au contraire, my dear. I’m going to swoop in and save the day. I’m going to be the one who rescues the company, creating jobs and making Noorö famous in the process. That’s the best part.’

‘And how are you going to pull that off?’

‘The mines, of course. We’re going to be renowned for maturing our whiskey underground.’

William Tryste gestures toward the barrels by the wall.

‘The fact that I’ve discovered seventy-year-old whiskey in one of the mines won’t hurt our finances or marketing one bit, either. You would have been able to vouch for the quality of it, right?’

Would have been.

The sound of the door opening startles her. She turns around. William Tryste empties his glass and stands up.

‘Finally. Are you ready?’ he says.

The question is addressed to Helena Tryste, who is standing in the doorway. She’s holding Karen’s handbag in one hand and her tartan scarf and the hat with the earflaps in the other. She nods mutely.

‘Where are we going?’ Karen asks.