For the first time the young man seemed less confident.

“My name is Han van der Kerch,” he said, after a few minutes’ further silence. “I’m Dutch, but I’m residing in the country legally. I’m a student.”

Now Håkon Sand had his explanation for the perfect yet not fully idiomatic Norwegian. He remembered his boyhood hero Ard Schenk, remembered himself as a thirteen-year-old thinking that the man spoke an unbelievably good Norwegian for a foreigner. And he remembered reading Gabriel Scott’s Dutchman Jonas, a book he had loved as a child and which had contributed to his later unwavering support for the orange shirts in international football championships.

“That’s all I’m prepared to say.”

Once again there was silence. Håkon waited for Hanne Wilhelmsen’s next move. Whatever it might be.

“Well, that’s okay by me. It’s your choice, and your right. But we’ll be sitting here for some time in that case.”

She had inserted a sheet of paper in the typewriter, as if she already knew that she would get something to take down.

“You might as well hear a theory we have.”

The chair leg scraped on the linoleum as she pushed it back. She offered the Dutchman a cigarette, and lit one herself. The young man seemed grateful. Håkon was less pleased, and leaning back in his chair pushed the door ajar to create a through-draught. The window was already slightly open.

“We found a body on Friday evening,” said Hanne Wilhelmsen in a soft voice. “It was a bit of a mess. He obviously hadn’t wanted to die. At least not in such a horrible way. There must have been a lot of blood around. You were pretty well covered in it when we found you. We can be a bit slow here in the police sometimes. But we’re still capable of putting two and two together. As a rule we get four, and we think we’ve got four now.”

She stretched behind her for an ashtray on the bookshelf. It was a tasteless souvenir from southern climes made of brown bottle glass, featuring a faun in the centre wearing an evil grin and sporting an enormous erect phallus. Not exactly Hanne Wilhelmsen’s style, thought Sand.