‘I’d already cordoned off the scene. Not that I suspected foul play, really, more because I wanted to set a good example. We have a couple of new guys at the station and they were on duty on Christmas Day. When Sven called a few hours later, we started looking for the other shoe and after a while, we spotted it on a boulder, not far from where Stuub was found. One of the guys managed to fish it out using a rope and piece of barbed wire from a fence down by the road. It may not be strictly by the book, but I was worried it might blow into the water if we left it there. Anyway, the back of it was scratched up, as Sven said the other shoe was. That’s when I decided to contact the CID. Not sure if it was the right thing to do, but I go by the book.’

‘You did the right thing,’ Karen says with a reassuring smile.

He must have called the CID around two, she muses, but Smeed didn’t call me until that evening. I really must have been his last resort.

‘That means it’s been more or less exactly twenty-four hours since Gertrud Stuub found her brother,’ she says.

Once again, her statement is met with silence. The only sound is Brodal chewing. In the end, he is the one to break the silence.

‘So,’ he says with a dry laugh, ‘how many curious locals have tramped around the potential crime scene by now, do you reckon? Sören Larsen’s not going to be pleased . . .’

Nothing in Thorstein Byle’s voice betrays the irritation hinted at by the tension in his jaw.

‘None,’ he replied. ‘Though I suppose Gertrud Stuub might have compromised any potential evidence. And the dog, of course. And I’m bound to have left shoe prints, too. On the other hand, the body was impossible to see from directly above it, which is to say from where he fell. You had to walk off to the side a little to spot him, so that’s likely where most of our footprints will be concentrated. And that’s where the boys from emergency services went down, as well. They had to pull him up sort of sideways.’

‘We’ll see when we get there,’ Karen puts in.

But Kneought Brodal refuses to back down.

‘And you’re certain the scene has been kept secure the whole time?’ he asks. ‘That your boys didn’t sneak home to the missus to scarf down some Christmas lamb’s head as soon as you turned your back?’

A flush of anger climbs up Thorstein Byle’s neck to his cheeks; he stares down into his empty coffee cup in an attempt to compose himself before answering.

Karen decides to step in.