But the town is there. You sense its presence long before you get a good look at it. Visberg might be half the size of Gavrik but it has twice the stature. And ten times the wealth.

I approach the white memorial bike on the side of the road. The place I stopped last night. The spot where I heard that ghostly scream through the fog. There’s a pair of official-looking cars parked up. The ground has been pummelled to mud. Churned. The body will be gone by now. Some highly qualified woman or man will be sharpening their bone saws. Preparing their Dictaphone. Checking their scalpel.

That poor man. The ultimate dehumanising act. Without a face, what are we? Without a brain? The detachment of a soul, or else a bank of memories, from a heart.

Medieval.

I get chills just thinking about it. That quivering beech leaf. The pool of blood held in its curve. The unlikeliness of it all.

I pass a cross on the far side of the road. Fresh flowers either side of it still wrapped in cellophane. Carnations and tight-bud roses. Another death. Another troupe of broken friends and family left behind.

My truck shudders as I drive over disused train tracks. A relic from the old days when Visberg was part of a thriving, centuries-old Swedish iron and steel industry.

And then the town begins to reveal itself.

The winding road ahead. The incline. The town disappears from view again as I turn. Pines either side of me like sharpened barriers erected by ancients. Unsophisticated perimeters to keep me in, keep me on track, keep me heading higher and higher.

My dash falls from nine Celsius to seven. Then down to five.

The Hilux sounds different on this hill. The transmission. Or the engine straining.

I head up higher.

The town appears again atop the mountain, like some Italian monastery. Like Monte Cassino before the bombs rained down out of the sky. Like the construction of Visberg was an act of defiance. A fuck you to the world.

The road straightens up. Was the dead man from this isolated place? Is his killer still walking these streets?

A town square up ahead, one I recognise from Google images.

Three-sided.

In front of me, beyond the bandstand and the bronze statue at the centre of the square, is the main structure in the town. Originally a home for disturbed minors. Three storeys. Wooden. Long and flat, like the side view of a club sandwich. Lots of windows. The building is painted black with yellow window frames. But the main event is up on the roof. It’s the huge rotating bee that really draws the eye. Moving round at a speed so slow you have to look twice. Thrice. You have to keep on looking.

I arrive in the square itself. Prettier than any part of Gavrik. More money here. More greenery and thoughtful town planning.