William Tryste leads them through the wide double doors into a large lobby with a reception desk, display cabinets and brochure stands, past a narrow hallway with closed doors on either side and through the heart of the distillery with its enormous, pear-shaped copper stills. Eventually, they find themselves in a room that looks like a conflation of a conference room and an office. On their right is a long table surrounded by twelve chairs, two of the walls are covered in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and the space between the two tall windows is occupied by a massive antique leather-top desk.

Why would anyone choose to sit with their back to that view? Karen wonders, gazing out at the unbroken horizon. Maybe so they can get something done, she answers her own question.

Prompted by a welcoming gesture from their host, Karen and Thorstein Byle sit down at opposite ends of a long, dark-brown leather sofa. William Tryste politely waits until they are seated before hitching up his trouser legs and sinking into one of the two large Chesterfield armchairs across from them. The coffee table is made of a thick slab of glass set on top of two old oak barrels and resting on it is a tray with three cups, a teapot and a plate of shortbread.

‘Maybe you’ve visited the distillery before?’ Tryste asks.

‘I haven’t,’ Karen says and looks around. ‘But I’m not unfamiliar with your products,’ she adds with a wry smile. ‘Have you been here before?’

She turns to Thorstein Byle, who nods.

‘I have, but it must be ten years ago, maybe fifteen.’

‘Oh, a lot has changed since then!’ William Tryste exclaims and leans forward to fill their teacups. ‘And there’s more to come. Milk?’

Karen’s eyes are drawn to the windows once more. No curtains to obscure the view and the sea is so close it feels like sitting in the prow of a large ship. Not too shabby for an office, she thinks enviously, picturing the Dunker police station where the Doggerland Criminal Investigation Department is headquartered. The building, an architectural fiasco from the seventies, is as menacing on the outside as it is dull on the inside and the locals have appropriately taken to calling it The Bunker. William Tryste’s office at Groth’s distillery is the very antithesis of The Bunker.

‘This is as far north as you can get in this country,’ Tryste says, noticing Karen’s gaze. ‘Well, with the exception of the ship setting, of course. But this is the northernmost building on the island. The northernmost building on any of the Doggerian Islands, in fact,’ he adds with poorly concealed pride.

Karen tears her eyes away from the view and turns her attention to their host.

‘Have you worked here long?’

William Tryste shakes his head.