2

A short time earlier, the woman on the floor had been ash blond. You couldn’t tell that now. Her head had been separated from her body, and her mid-length hair had become entangled in the fibers of her severed neck. Also, the back of her head had been smashed. Her dead, wide-open eyes seemed to stare in astonishment at Hanne Wilhelmsen, as if the Chief Inspector were a most unexpected guest.

A fire was still burning in the hearth. Low flames licked the sooty black rear wall, but the glow they cast was faint and had a limited range. Since the power was cut and the dark night pressed against the windows like an inquisitive spectator, Hanne Wilhelmsen felt the urge to pile on some more logs. Instead, she switched on a Maglite. The beam swept over the corpse. The woman’s head and body were clearly parted, but the short distance between them indicated that the decapitation must have occurred while the woman was lying on the floor.

“Pity about that polar-bear skin,” Police Sergeant Erik Henriksen mumbled.

Hanne Wilhelmsen let the shaft of light dance around the room. The living room was spacious, almost square, and cluttered with furniture. The Chief Public Prosecutor and his wife obviously had a fondness for antiques, though their fondness for moderation was less well developed. In the semi-darkness, Hanne Wilhelmsen could see wooden rosemaling bowls from Telemark, painted with flower motifs in traditional folk style, side by side with Chinese porcelain in white and pale blue. A musket was hanging above the fireplace. Sixteenth century, the Chief Inspector assumed, and had to stop herself from touching the exquisite weapon.

Two painstakingly crafted wrought-iron hooks yawned above the musket. The samurai sword must have hung there. Now it was lying on the floor beside mother-of-three Doris Flo Halvorsrud, a woman who would not celebrate her forty-fifth birthday, an occasion barely three months ahead. Hanne continued to search through the wallet she had removed from the handbag in the hallway. The eyes that had once gazed into a camera lens for the Driving License Agency had the same startled look as the lifeless head beside the hearth.

The children were in a plastic pocket.

Hanne shuddered at the sight of the three teenagers laughing at the photographer from a rowing boat, all clad in life jackets and the elder boy brandishing a half bottle of lager. The youngsters looked alike, and all resembled their mother. The beer drinker and his sister, the eldest, had the same blond hair as Doris Flo Halvorsrud. The youngest had been on the receiving end of a drastic haircut: a skinhead with acne and braces, making a V-sign with skinny boyish fingers above his sister’s head.

The picture was vibrant with strong summer colors. Orange life jackets nonchalantly slung over bronzed shoulders, red-and-blue swimming costumes dripping onto the green benches of the boat. This was a photograph telling a story about siblings as they rarely appear. About life as it almost never happens.

As Hanne Wilhelmsen put the photo back, it occurred to her that they had seen no sign of anyone else apart from Halvorsrud since they’d got there. Running her finger absent-mindedly over an old scar on her eyebrow, she closed the wal