The editorial desk had produced one of the pictures of Ludvig Sandersen’s corpse they had used before, and mounted it beside an old archive photograph of Hans Olsen. It must have been taken more than ten years earlier, rather fuzzy and presumably an enlargement from what had originally been a group photograph. The lawyer had a surprised expression on his face, and was on the point of blinking, which gave his eyes a tired and vacant look. The caption was in bright red ink and covered part of the photomontage. “Mafia Behind Two Murders” it announced in trenchant terms. Håkon Sand found the story barely recognisable. He read the front page and the two full inside pages that the newspaper had devoted to the subject. Across the top of each page was a black strip with a white text: “The Mafia Affair.” He ground his teeth in annoyance at the exaggerations, but on closer reading he could see that Myhreng hadn’t promulgated any actual untruths. The facts were stretched, the speculations far-fetched and so well camouflaged that they could easily be taken for truth.
