Emma browsed through her blog archive, alarmed at how many times she had written about Jessica Flatebø – mainly before her disappearance, but there had also been a number of articles during the six days that had elapsed since she went missing. Stories about Flatebø always attracted a lot of readers, generally because they were about her latest capers on social media, and were often illustrated with a photo, the main focus being either her lips, plunging neckline, backside or legs.
Flatebø had become a phenomenon: overnight, seemingly, everyone had known who she was, mainly because she had entered Paradise Hotel with an insatiable appetite for both sexes, but also because of her model looks and notoriously unrestrained behaviour 110– whether the cameras were on her or not. It had been a winning combination, getting clicks from both women and men, who would have liked to find themselves the targets of her sexual appetite, but also from the morally righteous contingent, who just had to see what she had got up to this time.
Younger readers, on the other hand, apparently looked up to Flatebø for everything she did. In their eyes she was cool, funny, exciting and inspirational. Far too many wanted to be like her one day. It was their comments that had made Emma regret having given Flatebø an even broader platform.
When it was reported that she may have disappeared of her own free will, people immediately began to suggest suicide, so Emma had been given strict instructions to give the story a wide berth, since Anita didn’t want news.no to profit from a personal tragedy, no matter how well known the person might be.
However, the Oslo Police had now issued a bulletin saying a dead body had been discovered in Nordmarka, and that ‘it is suspected that Flatebø was the victim of a crime’. The pendulum had swung back, and Anita had asked Emma to assemble as much material as she could, and was happy for her to recirculate old articles as well.
Emma had considered sending a message to Alex Blix to ask whether he knew anything about Flatebø, but decided against it. He probably had more than enough on his plate with Nordstrøm and Sørensen. What’s more, she didn’t want to give him the impression that she was trying to exploit him. She found some comfort in the fact that none of the other media outlets had broken any stories about it either.
It was nearly seven o’clock when her mobile phone buzzed.
It was Kasper: I need a guide to Oslo’s restaurant scene.
Emma gave a fleeting smile before answering: Have you tried Yellow Pages?
She waited on tenterhooks for his response.
Too many to choose from. Need a good recommendation. And preferably a blonde, beautiful woman to share a meal with. 
111
Emma hugged her mobile phone for a few seconds. Even though a lot might still take place in the course of the evening, she did have to eat.
Three quarters of an hour later she stepped into Villa Paradiso in Grünerløkka, taken aback by how nervous she felt. On other dates she’d had in the past few years, her expectations and conditions had been crystal clear in advance. A drink or five, food, maybe sex – at his place or some other neutral location – if he behaved himself and fulfilled all her other criteria. Now she had no idea what she wanted. But she was pretty sure what he had in mind.
As usual the restaurant was packed to the rafters, but Kasper had arrived early and bagged a table for two in the far corner of the ground floor. He stood up and waved as Emma spotted him. They greeted each other with a tentative hug. Kasper smelled fabulous – shampoo and toothpaste. Smelling good was criterion number one.
‘Brilliant that you have time for a bite of food,’ he began.
‘In fact, I’m not entirely sure of that,’ Emma answered. ‘I might have to get up and run at some point.’ She held up her mobile phone.
‘You’re pretty good at that, as I recollect. Or was it cycling you did?’
Emma nodded and gave him a smile.
‘In Copenhagen we understand bike lovers very well,’ he said. ‘No one cycles as much as we do, as you know.’
He smiled broadly as he pulled out a chair.
‘So gallant,’ Emma remarked.
‘Yes, you’d think a poor guy from Denmark was trying to impress someone.’
Emma smiled again. Humour – criterion number two.
‘How’s he doing?’ Kasper asked as he sat down.
‘It’s really too early to draw conclusions.’
All around them the air was filled with the hum of voices. Outside the window, people sauntered in and out of Olaf Ryes plass, a small, circular park in the heart of Grünerløkka. The restaurant’s wood-fired pizza oven gave off an enticing aroma.112
The waitress, a short woman with close-cropped, raven-black hair, arrived with the menus. Kasper ordered a beer, Emma a glass of dry white wine. Kasper asked Emma to recommend something from the selection of pizzas.
‘The one with four cheeses is pretty good,’ she said.
Kasper took her at her word, while she chose a Margherita.
‘So…’ Kasper said once the waitress had left with the menus ‘…how are things with you?’
Emma had no desire to talk about her life, so she replied merely with ‘fine’ and turned the question back on him.
‘Things are … “fine” with me too.’
‘Do you have any good material on Jeppe Sørensen for tomorrow?’
‘Not really,’ he answered genially. Emma had the feeling he was reluctant to give anything away, now that they were essentially competitors.
The waitress returned with their drinks. Kasper gave the woman a smile too. Polite – criterion number three.
He raised his glass eagerly and said: ‘What about you? Have you any hot topics ready for the morning?’
Emma shook her head. ‘We don’t let things lie in my line of business,’ she said. ‘We publish as soon as we get hold of something.’
‘So what’s the latest?’
Emma told him about Jessica Flatebø. Kasper hadn’t heard of her, but spoke in a resigned tone about a similar celebrity blogger in Denmark. Both young girls who had nothing to offer apart from their looks.
He took a gulp of beer from his glass and leaned slightly towards her. ‘How have you been since … Gothenburg?’
Emma quickly looked up at him, aware that her cheeks were burning. ‘Well, there’s been a lot on at work and loads of…’
‘Cycling?’
‘Yes,’ she said, grateful to him for giving her something to laugh at.113
‘Have you…?’ He paused for a moment before completing the question. ‘Have you thought about me during all that time?’
Emma took a sip of her wine to buy herself a moment or two. She shot him a look over the rim of her glass, noticing that he didn’t seem nervous about what her answer might be. On the contrary: he was self-assured, but not in an unpleasant way. Criterion number four: she liked men who exuded confidence.
Emma didn’t know how honest she should be. A ‘yes’ would put more significance on their affair than she was willing to admit. A ‘no’ would seem dismissive.
‘As I said, there’s been a lot of…’
She couldn’t find the right words to round off her sentence. She could have said her grandmother, Martine, work. She could have said Emma, but she wasn’t prepared to open up to him about herself just yet.
‘Well, I, at least, have been thinking about you,’ Kasper said, in a quiet, warm voice. Emma had hoped he wouldn’t – that they wouldn’t – arrive at this, at Gothenburg, at such an early stage in the evening. ‘I’ve been wondering what you thought about … us.’
Emma refused to meet his eyes. ‘I haven’t thought much about it, in fact,’ was all she said. ‘You went to Copenhagen, and I went home.’ She lifted her gaze, briefly, and saw that he’d been hoping for a different response.
‘Do you want to know what I thought?’ he said after a lengthy pause.
‘I’m not really sure,’ Emma answered, after a few seconds hesitation.
‘I thought it was a wonderful evening. A wonderful night. With a girl I’d love to get to know a bit better.’
‘Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Am I?’
Emma would have liked the opportunity to let her eyes wander, but she was sitting with her back to the rest of the restaurant. All she could see was Kasper.114
They sipped their drinks without a word.
‘So what do you think might be the connection between Sonja Nordstrøm and Jeppe Sørensen?’ he asked.
Emma was pleased he had changed the subject. ‘Other than being superstars in their homelands and involved in sport?’ she asked, pondering this for a few moments. ‘I don’t really know,’ she added. ‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘Jeppe was down in the dumps, psychologically,’ Kasper said. ‘But there was nothing of that kind in Nordstrøm’s case, was there? Was she suffering some sort of depression because her career was over?’
Emma shook her head. ‘It’s been a long time since Nordstrøm quit competitive sports, and she’s never been the kind to let things get her down. Quite the opposite: whenever she’s had problems, she’s just worked her way through them. Moved on without a backward glance.’
‘You’ve been reading her book.’
‘Yes.’
‘I must get round to doing that too.’
‘I’ve got a copy at home,’ Emma said, but regretted it immediately. She didn’t want to open that door. Definitely didn’t want to open the door to her own home – it would be too difficult to get Kasper to leave afterwards. Especially as she possibly wouldn’t want him to.
‘And why should the perpetrator go after famous people with depression, anyway?’ she continued. ‘That makes no sense.’
‘I can only agree with you there,’ Kasper said.
But he’d given Emma something to think about. For a killer, it could be a smart move to find a victim whose mental problems were already well known. Missing-persons cases often turned out to be suicides, and even though the police and friends would conduct a search, they wouldn’t necessarily do it in the expectation that anything criminal had happened. And the media would more or less take a back seat, making it easier for a perpetrator to slip through the net.
In the case of Jeppe Sørensen, however, there was little doubt that 115everyone would find out that he’d been murdered. This made Emma wonder how Jessica Flatebø had been found – was it in the same obvious way as Sørensen? Jessica too had struggled with her mental health in the past few months.