‘You… you killed her too?’

‘Yes. And then Borgny. I followed her. She was unlocking the door to the block of flats where she lived when I went up to her with the knife. I took her down to the cellar in Nydalen where I had everything prepared. Padlock. Apple. I gave her a shot of ketanome in the neck. Then I went to Skien, to an investors’ meeting where all my witnesses were waiting. The alibi. I knew that while we were raising a toast, Borgny would be doing the job herself. They all do in the end. Then I went back, went through the cellar, picked up my padlock, took the apple out of her mouth and went home. To you. We made love. You pretended to come. Do you remember?’

Lene shook her head, unable to speak.

‘Close your eyes, I said.’

She felt his fingers glide over her forehead and close her eyelids, like an undertaker. Heard his voice drone on as if to himself.

‘He liked to hit me. I can understand that now. The feeling of power that lies in inflicting pain, seeing another person succumb to you, having thy will being done on earth as it is in heaven.’

She could smell the scent on him, the scent of sex. Of a woman’s sex. Then his voice was there again, close to her ear now. ‘As I killed them something began to happen. It was like their blood was watering a seed that had been there the whole time. I began to grasp what I had seen in my father’s eyes that time. The recognition. For just as he saw himself in me, I began to see him when I looked at myself in the mirror. I liked the power. And the impotence. I liked the game, the risk, the simultaneous highs and lows. When you stand on top of the mountain with your head in a cloud and hear the choir of angels in paradise you also have to hear the hissing fires of hell beneath you for it to mean anything. That was what my father knew. And now I know it, too.’

Lene saw red stains dancing on the insides of her eyelids.

‘I didn’t realise the extent of my hatred until a few years later when I was standing with a girl on the edge of the wood outside a dance hall. A boy attacked me. I saw jealousy burning in his eyes. I saw my father coming at me and my mother with the spade. I cut the boy’s tongue out. They arrested me, and I was given a prison sentence. And there I discovered what it does to you. And why Dad never mentioned his spell in the clink. Not a word. I received a short sentence. Nevertheless I almost went mad inside. And while I was doing time I realised what I had to do. I had to have him put in prison for murdering my mother. Not kill him, but have him incarcerated, buried alive. First, though, I had to find the proof, the remains of my mother. So I built a cabin up in the mountains, far from habitation, to ensure there was no chance of anyone recognising the boy who went missing when he was fifteen. Every year I searched the plateau, square kilometre by square kilometre, began as soon as most of the snow had gone, preferably at night when no one else was out and about, trawling precipices and avalanche areas. If I had to, I would stay the night in a Tourist Association cabin where people were only passing through. But some of the locals must have seen me anyway; at any rate, rumours began to circulate about the ghost of the Utmo boy.’ Tony chuckled. Lene opened her eyes, but Tony didn’t notice, he was studying a cigarette holder he had just taken out of the pocket of the dressing gown. Lene hurriedly closed her eyes again.

‘After Borgny’s murder a letter came signed “Charlotte”, who wrote that she had been behind the previous letter. I saw that I was caught in a game. It could have been another bluff or it could have been anyone who was in the Havass cabin that night. So I went up to have a look at the guest book, but the page for that night had been torn out. So I killed Charlotte. And waited for the next letter. It came. I killed Marit. And then Elias. After that things went quiet. Then I read in the paper that they were asking people who had been to the Havass cabin the same night as the murder victims to come forward. I knew, of course, that no one would guess I had been there, but also that if I came forward I might find out from the police who had been there. Find out who was after me. Who was left to kill. So I went straight to the person I assumed would know most. This detective, Harry Hole. I tried to pump him about the other guests. Fat lot of good that did. Instead, this Mikael Bellman came along and arrested me. Someone had used my phone to call Elias Skog, he told me. And then I saw the light. This wasn’t about money; someone was trying to get me arrested. Imprisoned. Who could stand by and cold-bloodedly watch people being murdered and still persist… with this crusade against me? Who could hate me so much? Then the final letter arrived. This time he didn’t reveal his identity, just wrote he had been to the Havass cabin that night, as invisible as a ghost. Said I knew him all too well. And he was coming to get me. And then it clicked. At last he had found me. Dad.’

Tony paused for breath.

‘He had planned the same for me as I had planned for him. To be buried alive, incarcerated for life. But how had he managed it? I wondered if he had kept the Havass cabin under surveillance. Is that how he knew I was alive? Had he been following me from a distance? After I got engaged to you, the celeb gossip press started printing pictures of me, and perhaps even Dad occasionally flicked through those magazines. But he had to be working with someone. For example, he couldn’t have gone to Oslo and broken in, he couldn’t have taken the photo of Adele with the knife in her neck. Or could he? I found out that he had fled the farm, the slippery bastard. What he didn’t know was that I was now much more familiar with the area than him after searching for my mother for all those years. I found him at the Tourist Association cabin in Kjeften. I was as happy as a child. But it was an anticlimax.’

Rustling of silk.

‘I derived less pleasure from torturing him than I had hoped. He didn’t even recognise me, the blind idiot. But it didn’t matter. I wanted him to see me as he himself had never managed to be. A success. I wanted to humiliate him. Instead he saw me as himself. A killer.’ He sighed. ‘And I began to realise he hadn’t been working with anyone. And he didn’t have the ability to do all this alone, he was too fragile, too frightened and too cowardly. I started the avalanche at Havass, almost in a panic. Because I knew now: there was someone else. An invisible, inaudible hunter standing in the dark somewhere with his breathing attuned to mine. I had to get away. Out of the country. Somewhere I couldn’t be found. So here we are, my love. On the edge of a jungle the size of Western Europe.’

Lene was trembling uncontrollably. ‘Why are you doing this, Tony? Why are you telling me… this?’

She felt his hand on her cheek. ‘Because you deserve it, my love. Because your name is Galtung and you will have a long commemorative speech when you die. Because I think it’s right you should hear all about me before you give me your answer.’

‘Answer to what?’

‘Whether you want to marry me.’

Her brain was in a spin now. ‘Whether I want… want…’

‘Open your eyes, Lene.’

‘But I…’

‘Open them, I said.’

She did as she was told.

‘This is for you,’ he said.

Lene Galtung gasped.

‘It’s made of gold,’ Tony said. The sunlight gleamed on the matt goldenbrown metal as it lay on a sheet of paper on the coffee table between them. ‘I want you to wear it.’

‘Wear it?’

‘After you’ve signed our marriage contract, of course.’

Lene blinked repeatedly. Tried to rouse herself from the nightmare. The hand with the distorted fingers moved across the table, covering hers. She looked down, looked at the pattern on the burgundy silk of his dressing gown.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘That the money you’ve brought with you will only last a while, but marriage will give me certain inheritance rights when you die. You’re wondering if I intend to take your life. Aren’t you?’