Bjorn Holm turned up the heating. Harry pushed himself back in the seat.

‘When the others get up the following morning, Tony has left. Ole acts as if nothing has happened. Because he is stronger now; many years of hatred have hardened him. He knows the others have seen Adele and Tony, they have seen his humiliation, just like before. But he is calm. He knows what he is going to do. He might have been longing for it, this last nudge, the free fall. A couple of days later he has a plan ready. He returns to the Havass cabin, maybe gets a lift there on a snowmobile, and tears out the page in the guest book detailing their names. For this time it won’t be him who flees the witnesses in shame; they are the ones who are going to suffer. And Adele. But the person who will suffer most is Tony. He will have to carry all the shame Ole has carried; his name will be dragged through the mud; his life will be destroyed; he will be smitten by the same unjust God who allows tongues of the lovelorn to be severed.’

Sigurd Altman rolled down the window and a soft whistling sound filled the car.

‘The first thing Ole has to do is find himself a room, a headquarters where he can work undisturbed and without fear of being discovered. And what could be more natural than the disused factory where he experienced the happiest night of his life? There he starts gathering information about his victims and planning in detail. Of course, he has to kill Adele Vetlesen first as she was the only person at Havass to know his full identity. Names that may have been exchanged up there would have been forgotten soon enough and no copy of the guest book page existed. Sure about the cigarette, boys?’

No answer. Harry sighed.

‘So he arranges to meet her again. He picks her up in a car. Which he has covered internally with plastic. They drive to an undisturbed spot, probably the Kadok factory. There he takes out a large knife with a yellow handle. He forces her to write a postcard he dictates and to address it to her flatmate in Drammen. Afterwards he kills her. Bjorn?’

Bjorn Holm coughed and changed down a gear. ‘The autopsy shows he punctured her carotid artery.’

‘He gets out of the car. Takes a picture of her sitting in the passenger seat with a knife in the neck. The photograph. Confirmation of revenge, of triumph. It’s the first photo that goes on his office wall in the Kadok factory.’

An oncoming car swerved out of its lane, but went back in and hooted its horn as it passed.

‘Perhaps it was easy to kill her. Perhaps not. Nevertheless, he knows she is the most critical victim. They hadn’t met very often, but he can’t know for sure how much she has told her friends about him. He only knows that if she is found dead and her death can be linked to him, a dumped lover will be the police’s main suspect. If she is found. If, on the other hand, she apparently disappears, for example during a trip to Africa, he is safe.

‘So Ole sinks her body in a place he knows well, where the water is deep and what’s more where people keep well away. The place with the jilted bride in the window. The ropery by Lake Lyseren. Then he travels to Leipzig and pays the prostitute, Juliana Verni, to take the postcard Adele wrote with her to Rwanda, to stay at a hotel under Adele’s name and send the card to Norway. Furthermore, she has to bring Ole something back from the Congo. A murder weapon. A Leopold’s apple. The special weapon is not plucked out of the air, of course, it has to have some connection with the Congo and prompt the police to become suspicious about the Congo traveller, Tony Leike. Ole pays Juliana on her return to Leipzig. And perhaps it is there, standing over the trembling Juliana, in tears as she opens her mouth to receive the apple, that he begins to experience the joy, the ecstasy of sadism, an almost sexual pleasure he has developed and nourished for years with his lonely daydreams of revenge. Afterwards he dumps her in the river, but the body surfaces and is found.’

Harry took a deep breath. The road had become narrower, and the forest had slunk in, was dense on both sides now.

‘In the course of the next weeks he kills Borgny Stem-Myhre and Charlotte Lolles. Unlike with Adele and Juliana he doesn’t try to hide their bodies, quite the contrary. Nevertheless, the police investigation does not lead them to Tony Leike, as Ole has hoped. So he has to continue killing, continue to leave a trail, to push them. He kills Marit Olsen, the MP, exhibits her in Frogner Lido. Now the police have to see the connection between the women, have to find the man with the Leopold’s apple. But it doesn’t happen. And he knows he will have to intervene, give a helping hand, take a risk. He watches Tony’s house in Holmenveien until he sees him leave. Then he breaks in through the cellar, goes up to the living room and calls the next victim, Elias Skog, from Tony’s phone on the desk. On the way out he steals a bike to make the break-in appear normal. Leaving fingerprints upstairs in the living room doesn’t bother Ole; everyone knows the police don’t investigate run-of-the-mill burglaries. Then he goes to Stavanger. At this point his sadism is in full bloom. He kills Elias by glueing him to the bathtub and leaving the tap running. Hey, petrol station! Anyone hungry?’

Bjorn Holm didn’t even slow down.

‘OK. Then something does happen. Ole receives a letter. It’s from a blackmailer. He writes that he knows Ole has killed and he wants money. Otherwise the police will be round. Ole’s first thought is that it must be someone who knows he was at Havass, so it must be one of the two survivors. Iska Peller. Or Tony Leike. He excludes Iska Peller right away. She’s Australian, went back and, anyway, is hardly likely to write in Norwegian. Tony Leike, what irony! They never met at the cabin, but Adele may of course have mentioned Ole’s name while they were flirting. Or Tony may have seen Ole’s name in the guest book. At any rate, Tony must have guessed the connection as the murders appeared in the newspapers. The blackmail attempt squares pretty well with what the financial press is writing about Tony being desperately in need of funds for his Congo project. Ole takes a decision. Even though he would have preferred Tony to live with the shame, he has to turn to the second option before things spiral out of control. Tony has to die. He tails Tony. Follows him onto the train which goes where Tony always goes – Ustaoset. Follows his snowmobile tracks which lead to a locked Tourist Association cabin situated among cliffs and crevices. And that’s where Ole finds him. And Tony recognises the ghost, the boy from the dance hall, the boy whose tongue he cut off. And realises what’s in store for him. Ole takes his revenge. He tortures Tony. Burns him. Maybe to make him reveal possible partners in the blackmail venture. Maybe for his own enjoyment.’

Altman rolled the window back up, hard.

‘Cold,’ he said.

‘While this is going on, he hears on the news that Iska Peller is in the cabin at Havass. Ole senses that the final solution may be at hand, but smells a trap. He remembers the snowdrift above the cabin that locals said was dangerous. He reaches a decision. Perhaps he takes Tony with him as a guide, heads for the Havass cabin, starts the avalanche with dynamite. Then he drives the snowmobile back, unloads Tony – dead or alive – off the precipice and sends the snowmobile after him. If, contrary to expectation, the body should ever be found, it will look like an accident. A man who has burned himself and is on his way to find help perhaps.’

The countryside opened up. They passed a lake with the moon reflected in it.

‘Ole triumphs, he’s won. He’s tricked everyone, pulled the wool over their eyes. And he’s started to enjoy the game, the feeling of being in power, of having everyone follow his directions. So the master, who has bound eight individual fates into one big drama, decides to leave us with a parting gesture. To leave me with a parting gesture.’