Kari

Kari is a police officer whose investigations and personal decisions shape the novel’s aftermath: she uncovers Commissioner Parr’s concealed support for Sonny, learns how Simon drew Ab into a criminal arrangement, and chooses a future with Sam over two attractive job offers. Her final scene carries her from reflection on the past into a new investigation involving Yngve Morsand.

Investigation and the criminal network

Kari’s casework leads her to ask who had been paying the utility bills for Sonny’s former home. Following that trail, she reaches Commissioner Parr, who admits at Simon’s wake that he had secretly funded the house. Parr says he did so to ease his conscience for failing to care for Sonny and his mother after Ab’s suicide, and to ensure Sonny would have a habitable home after completing his sentence. The revelation complicates the public image of the police leadership: Parr’s help was personally motivated, but his own financial arrangements included money placed in anonymous trusts registered in the Cayman Islands.

Kari’s investigations also sit within the wider mystery of a criminal enterprise that depended on connections across the police, prison system, and business world. Simon recalls that rumours had circulated for years about a police mole leaking information to the person behind much of Oslo’s drug and sex trafficking, though no evidence had then established that either the mole or the criminal figure existed. Simon calls that figure the Twin. Later, he confronts Iver Iversen with evidence that Iversen Property helped the Twin launder proceeds from drugs and trafficking, receiving fictitious losses in return. These revelations supply the larger context for Kari’s inquiries, even where the evidence does not describe her as the person who personally establishes each link.

The network’s reach is also visible in the account of Yngve Morsand’s arrangement with Hugo Nestor. Morsand wanted his unfaithful wife killed but insisted on killing her himself; he paid three million kroner for others to arrange for someone else to take the blame. Nestor and Arild Franck organized the circumstances around Sonny’s day release and location, using a corrupt prison officer as part of the plan. The scheme shows how the criminals relied not on one isolated betrayal but on coordinated assistance from people positioned inside institutions.

Simon, Ab, and the cost of corruption

After Simon’s death, Kari visits Else, who tells her that Simon wanted her to understand what he had done to Ab before she made her own choice. Else recounts that Ab and Helene were deeply in debt when the banking crisis and rising interest rates threatened their home. Simon, already in a deal with the Twin, offered Ab money in exchange for his loyalty. Ab initially refused and threatened to report him, but Simon invoked Ab’s son and the prospect that the child would grow up poor because of his father’s pride. Ab then became involved in the corruption.

Else’s account makes the betrayal both institutional and intimate. Simon had not merely recruited another officer: he used Ab’s responsibility toward his family to draw him into the same moral collapse that had ensnared him. Simon later said that watching Ab lose his integrity had made him feel less alone. The arrangement eventually became untenable when the Twin wanted his police mole to rise through the ranks; there was no longer room for both Simon and Ab. Kari receives this history not as an abstract explanation of police corruption, but as a disclosure Simon specifically wanted her to have before deciding what came next.

Choice, family, and return to work

Kari’s private choices emerge alongside that account of inherited risk. Else recalls that Simon feared passing on his own destructive tendencies, including addiction, risk-taking, poor boundaries, and dark moods. Kari recognizes the fear as part of Simon’s concern about what a child might inherit. By the time she leaves Else, Kari and Sam are already trying for a baby.

Kari has also declined two substantial opportunities: an interesting position with the Justice Department and a much higher-paying job with an insurance company. Her decision marks a turn away from the career paths those offers represented and toward the family life she is trying to build with Sam. The novel presents the choice without suggesting that the dangers Simon feared can simply be escaped; instead, Kari must decide how to live with the knowledge of what may be passed down.

Aftermath and a new case

In the months after the shootings at Aker Brygge and St Paul’s Church, the police face criticism for brutality and for Simon’s unauthorized mission. Simon nevertheless receives a hero’s funeral, remembered publicly as a police officer who fought the city’s criminals and died in the service of justice. Parr’s eulogy reflects the public’s willingness to overlook Simon’s departures from procedure and Norwegian law. Kari’s knowledge of Parr’s role in funding Sonny’s house gives that public account a more complicated private context.

Kari’s final return to active police work comes on the road out of Oslo. Driving east with Åsmund Bjørnstad, she is told that Drammen Police have requested assistance in a case involving a shipowner, Yngve Morsand. At the house, she meets Henrik Westad of Buskerud Police and asks whether the death could be a suicide. The question closes the novel by bringing Kari back into an investigation whose victim is connected to the criminal history she has just been considering. Her work continues, but the snowfall she watches on the drive suggests how the present can conceal and transform what came before.