He could hear a wailing noise from the forest. Quite faint, but distinct nonetheless. It was someone crying, Vetle thought, a boy crying as Vetle had never heard anyone cry before. Arne never cried, he was far too big for that, but this was Arne, it was Vetle’s big brother who was blubbering so loudly, the seven-year-old was absolutely positive of that without really understanding why, and he turned abruptly with the lightest skis in the world and went back to the freshly made track towards the undulating slope on the east side of the ski run. Annoyed, he trudged quickly upwards, without sliding his skis, using the fishbone technique when the hill grew steeper. The trail didn’t go far. Just up to the steepest part, where it flattened out in a little clearing, a fissure on the mountainside beneath spruce trees heavily laden with snow and a naked, spindly beech.

Arne was sitting there.

Vetle’s big brother sat on the snow, on his backside, with his back leaning against a bare mountain ridge. He had lost his cap. His mittens were gone. He was curled up, with his head on his knees, and Vetle could see that the laces on one of his ski boots were untied.

The sobbing suddenly stopped, but Arne did not look up.

‘Go away,’ he said quietly. ‘Go home.’

‘But … your skis …’

One of the Madshus skis was lying diagonally in front of Arne, an arrow pointing straight at Vetle. The other one was planted in the snow. It was broken. The break cut the logo in two, and it said ‘Mads’ on the larger piece and ‘hus’ on the pitiful half-metre left hanging down towards the ground, still only just attached to the rest of it.

‘Dad will be mad at you,’ Vetle said softly. ‘He’ll kill you.’

‘Go. Go home.’

‘They were really dear, Arne. And you have to come with me. Mum said that you weren’t …’

‘You have to go home,’ Arne bawled, looking at him at last. ‘Go home! And don’t say a bloody word about this to anybody! Don’t you dare, Vetle! Not to Dad, not to Mum, not to …’

He drew breath in a gasp and shot his arm out into the darkness, towards the new trail that led down to the ski run, towards the residential area, all the houses on the plateau south of the lake at Maridalsvannet, where the ice-covered water could only just be made out through the spruce trunks that had been studded with snow diamonds since long before Christmas.

Arne pointed towards Oslo and screamed: ‘Get yourself home! Swear you won’t say anything!’

There was something strange about Arne’s eyes. They were shining and slightly faded at the same time. It was difficult to see clearly in the semi-darkness, but a strange expression had come over his brother’s face.

‘I swear,’ Vetle mumbled.

‘Go!’ Arne bellowed again.