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this needs to be dealt with as quickly as we can.
    After the patient had left, he turned to the student.
    – Anything to worry about there?
    She thought for a moment.
    – It didn’t seem like it to me, but it was a sizeable lump.
    – As a doctor you should always assume the worst, he lectured. – But it isn’t necessary to come out and say the worst. Not until you definitely know something.
    He rubbed his chin.
    – I didn’t like it. And she had three enlarged lymph glands in her armpit.
    He punched out a few lines on the keyboard, printed out a reference to a specialist.
    – This’ll go in the post today. And I’ll call the hospital as well. She’ll have been seen before the week is out, I can promise you that.
    He glanced at his watch.
    – I have to make the four-thirty boat. Tomorrow you can see a couple of patients without me being there.
    He usually waited until the second week before suggesting this, but the student – Miriam, was that her name? – seemed to be ready now to see cases on her own. He was rarely wrong in his judgement on this particular matter.
    – I’ve got a car, she said. – If you like, I can drive you there.
    He looked at her in surprise.
    – Well that’s very kind of you. It sounds as if you know where I’m going.
    She looked down.
    – You said the boat … so maybe you live on Nesodden. Or something like that.
     
    She drove with the same calmness as he heard in her voice. Not a single jolt when she changed gear, and he sank back in the seat and closed his eyes. It was as though she expected nothing of him. As though it were not the least bit embarrassing that he couldn’t face the thought of talking.
    – You’re worn out.
    Only now did he register what it was he’d been hearing all day: that she spoke with a slight accent. Eastern European maybe. He didn’t ask, wanted to know as little as possible about her.
    – I had to cover for someone last night, he explained. – It wasn’t my turn, but they were in a jam. Something happened, there was an accident …
    Suddenly he found himself describing it. Lise’s face, as though she were lying asleep in the ditch. Her mother, who held on to his arm as he was about to leave and wouldn’t let him go.
    – She was just a year older than the younger of my boys. He knew her.
    The bell on the quay sounded.
    – That idiot jammed behind the steering wheel stinking of booze, he exclaimed suddenly. – I could’ve killed him.
    – Your boat, she said.
    He didn’t move. There wasn’t a drop left in his tank. He looked out into the greyness that thickened over the fjord.
    – Got things to do?
    Without turning, he noticed that she shook her head.

7
     
Wednesday 26 September
     
    S OLVEIG L UNDWALL PUSHED the half-full shopping trolley in the direction of the frozen goods counter. It was a long way, at least a hundred metres. Rows of kitchen paper and toilet paper to pass. Cat food, dog food. Then the dried food. Porridge oats, muesli, cornflakes, Frosties, Cheerios. She picked up a packet of Honey Corn along the way. When she was little they had Honey Corn every Friday, after dinner. Milk. She must have enough milk. They drank so much milk at home. Four mouths that just drank and drank. A tube of caviar spread maybe, but they already had some. Mackerel in tomato sauce. She had written a list. It was at home somewhere. A man in a grey anorak wearing a cap appeared on her right and swung in front of her. Halted abruptly with his trolley sideways. She wanted to pick up speed and charge into it, stopped herself at the last moment.
    – Oh, sorry, he smirked, pretending to be polite, and wheeled his trolley to one side.
    She smiled back, as friendly as she could manage. It was stiff, she must have looked pretty strange, but she managed to get past the wrinkled and nicotined face. At the end of the row she reached the milk.
    – I must buy enough milk, she muttered. Five litres of semi-skimmed, five litres of skimmed. Ten litres? Back