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Harry wanted to laugh but had to swallow the lump in his throat instead. Bloody hell. What was that exactly? Was it what Ståle called priming? Did Harry only feel this way because the certainty that he was the father of the child had been planted in him? Or was it something more physical or biological, something in the blood calling, pulling two people helplessly towards one another?

Harry got to his feet.

‘Which animal ah you?’ Gert asked.

‘Orangotango,’ Harry said, and lifted Gert out of his chair and performed a pirouette that earned applause from one of the lonely guests. He put Gert down, and they walked hand in hand towards the door.

It was ten o’clock at night, and Prim had just fed Boss and Lisa. He sat down in front of the TV to watch the news again. To enjoy once again the results of what he had staged. Although the police didn’t say it directly, he could tell by the platitudes they were spouting that they hadn’t found any evidence at the scene. He had made the right decision when Helene got out of the car, and he’d had to kill her on the gravel road. Leaving behind DNA was unavoidable — a hair, a flake of skin or sweat — and seeing as he couldn’t carry out such a thorough clean-up on a road where witnesses might show up, he’d had to ensure that the gravel road wasn’t identified as the crime scene. So, he had taken the body in the car and deposited it at the end of the island, which he could be fairly certain was deserted late on an autumn night leaving him to carry out his work behind the cover of the tall reeds. And be fairly certain also that Helene’s body would be found when families and children descended on the area the next day. First, he had cut off her head, then gone over her body, washing and scraping off his own DNA from under the nails she had dug into his thighs when she had ridden him in the car. Care had to be taken, because although he had never been convicted of anything, the police had his DNA profile in their database.

The female news presenter on the TV was speaking via telephone to a male police lawyer, while a photo of him along with his name — Chris Hinnøy — appeared in the top-right corner of the screen. They were talking about Røed being remanded in custody. It was no wonder they were beginning to run out of exciting angles, the news channels had largely focused on the arrest of Markus Røed and the murder of his wife all day, even Bodø/Glimt’s narrow victory over Molde had received scant coverage. The same with the online newspapers, everything was about Markus Røed. Which, in an indirect way, meant that it was about him, Prim. Granted, now that the online editions had put up so many pictures of Markus Røed, pictures of Harry Hole had begun to crop up as well. They wrote that it had been he — the outsider, the private investigator — who had linked Markus Røed’s DNA to the saliva on Susanne’s breast. As if that was so amazing. As if the police shouldn’t have found out something like that by themselves ages ago. He was actually beginning to get pretty annoying, this Harry Hole. What business had he being in the limelight? The stage ought to be reserved for the case, the mystery, his mystery. They should dwell even more on the fact that Markus Røed, a man of privilege, a man who thought himself above the law, had now been wonderfully exposed and put in the stocks. People loved that sort of thing, Prim certainly did, it was sugar for the soul. Still, the public had received a hefty dose. He hoped his stepfather had access to the newspapers where he was, that he had ample opportunity to suffer, that this public humiliation was now the acid bath Prim had drawn for him. The confusion, desperation and fear Markus Røed must be feeling. Had the thought of taking his own life occurred to him yet? Prim wondered. No, the trigger for suicide, the factor that had pushed his mother to suicide, was hopelessness, and his stepfather still had hope. He had Johan Krohn himself acting on his behalf, and the only evidence the police had was some saliva. They were going to have to balance that against the false alibi Helene had given Markus for the nights Susanne and Bertine went missing. But what the police lawyer on TV had just said disturbed Prim.

This Chris Hinnøy had explained that there would be a preliminary hearing tomorrow where the judge would doubtless grant the police the usual four weeks of remand in custody, and — given the evidence and serious nature of the crime — further detention thereafter if required. That, in Norwegian law, there was no time limit on how long a person could be held in custody, so in principle years could pass. And it was of particular importance that the police were afforded generous access to the detention of people of advantage and means who could otherwise use their money or influence to have evidence destroyed, tamper with witnesses, yes, there were even examples of them attempting to influence investigators.