At least he’s quick, she thinks to herself and gets up to pour the boiling water over a teabag. Two plastic-wrapped oat biscuits are sitting on a small plate; she carefully opens the packaging with her teeth.

‘I already know all that,’ Smeed continues. ‘I spoke to Larsen last night. His account is relatively similar to yours.’

Fucking prick, she grumbles inwardly. Having me sit here, at half past five in the morning, going over facts you already know. Out loud, she says, ‘Just relatively, sir?’

‘Yes, he told me Stuub’s home has been searched as well. Apparently, the technicians found a laptop. But I guess you didn’t find that little detail significant . . .’

Karen’s already low early morning blood-sugar level plunges further. She briefly considers telling him it wasn’t Sören Larsen who found Fredrik Stuub’s laptop, but she decides against it. She’s not going to give Smeed the satisfaction of dismissing her corrections as petty. Besides, it’s not like she was the one who found it either.

She takes a bite of her biscuit and chews as quietly as she can.

‘And I would have given you that information, too, if you had let me continue,’ she says, forcing herself to stay calm. ‘The laptop has been sent to forensics and I’ve talked to the on-call prosecutor, who has requested call lists for Fredrik Stuub’s mobile phone. But as you know, because it’s a holiday, getting hold of the right people can be a challenge. A lot of people are on holiday . . .’

Silence on the other end. Me – one, Smeed – zero, Karen notes and continues.

‘The real question is whether the perpetrator was looking for the laptop or something else entirely. As soon as we have an answer, or at least a theory—’

‘And what do you have for me on potential motives and perpetrators?’ Smeed breaks in, as though he wasn’t listening. ‘Are you eating now?’ he adds, sounding annoyed.

Karen squashes the impulse to hurl her phone at the wall. Instead, she puts the biscuit down and decides to give him a taste of his own medicine. She takes a deep breath and resumes in a monotone drone, ‘Thorstein Byle and I have spoken to Gertrud Stuub. The conversation took place yesterday afternoon between 1.45 and 2.25. Also present was local priest Erling Arve.’

She continues to give a thorough account of every detail of their conversation with a meticulousness she knows must be enervating, and then moves on to inform him of her other activities.