A newspaper photograph of the defence team makes them look like slick successors to Sarah Lund et al
It's an incongruous image. The four well-coiffed Norwegians, pictured, look like they are the stars of the latest Nordic crime drama. But while the reality is not all that different, it's far more sobering: Geir Lippestad, Vibeke Hein Baera, Tord Jordet and Odd Ivar Groen are the lawyers for Anders Behring Breivik, the rightwing extremist who confessed to slaughtering 77 people in Oslo last summer.
Still, they could be straight from The Killing. Was that their intention? "No," sighs Hein Baera, as she picks up the phone in Oslo. "It wasn't a picture we commissioned. We did around 50 interviews yesterday, and it was just like any other interview and photo shoot. Our focus is on the case, not on how photographers are taking pictures of us." Of more pressing concern is the news that psychiatrists do not now consider Breivik to be insane.
Understandably, Hen Baera is irritated. "What is very weird is that we're working on this very serious case, and suddenly there is all this focus on a photograph of us." She insists the quartet had merely been walking from their offices to the courthouse. Since it was on the way, they agreed to be interviewed and photographed at the headquarters of VG, a major Norwegian newspaper. "It took 15 minutes – that was all we had time for. We didn't think about how the photographer was taking the picture. He just told us to sit on the sofa." Effortlessly cool, then.
Wearily, she bats away any suggestion that the lawyers have been seeking undue publicity. "Many people have a lot of questions about the case," she says, for what must be the umpteenth time this week. "So it's important we talk about why Mr Breivik did what he did."