When Karen takes a seat at the Byles’ kitchen table, it is with a plate heaped with parsley herring, creamed kale, clove-scented black pudding, thin slices of lamb steak and rowanberry jelly. Only on Christmas would it ever occur to her to mix all those things on one plate.

Solveig Byle has decorated the floor around the hob with juniper branches, laid the table with green cloth napkins and lit the seven-armed brass candelabra on the table, even though it’s the middle of the day. Her thoughtfulness gives Karen a lump in her throat. The door to the hallway is open and she can hear jaunty music and the squeaky, contrived voice-over of a children’s cartoon from another room. It sounds remarkably cosy.

‘You have young children?’ Karen asks, trying to hide her surprise. Thorstein must be past sixty and Solveig didn’t look much younger.

Byle, who is pouring juniper brew from a pitcher, looks nonplussed, then he chuckles.

‘You mean “the kids”? Dear me, no, she’s talking about the grandchildren. Our daughter is working at the nursing home down in Lysvik both today and yesterday, so the girls are staying here over the holidays. Trine kicked her husband out last spring – and not a day too soon.’

He doesn’t elaborate and Karen doesn’t ask.

They eat in silence for a while. The leftovers Solveig dismissed as ‘nothing fancy’ were clearly cooked from scratch with a lot of love.

‘This is really good,’ Karen says after a while.

‘Yes, Solveig knows her stuff.’

‘Maybe we should sum up what we have so far?’ she says. ‘You talk, since you get to eat like this every day, and I’ll keep chewing.’

Thorstein Byle takes a sip of juniper brew, leans back and wipes his mouth.

‘Well, there are fairly clear indications of dragging on both the body and at the scene, so we can assume we’re dealing with a crime. And the fact that someone seems to have turned Fredrik’s house upside down supports that.’

Karen nods.

‘Yes, it would take a lot to convince me otherwise at this point. So the question is: who stands to gain from killing Fredrik Stuub? Any theories?’

‘None aside from the obvious one. I assume the grandson inherits.’

‘Gabriel, was it? What’s his surname?’

‘Stuub. His mother’s name, since she was unmarried.’

‘Right, father unknown, you said?’

‘Rumour has it his father is a certain Allan Jonshed, which I suppose would explain some things.’

‘The Allan Jonshed?’

Byle nods. For whatever reason, Karen has never worked a case with direct links to Noorö’s criminal motorcycle gang. But she obviously knows Allan Jonshed is the President of the OP.

‘Where exactly are the OP headquartered?’

‘They have a farm up by Tyrfallet, near Skalvet, on the other side of the island. Why? You’re not thinking of going up there, are you?’

Karen shrugs.