The boom of gunshot drifts through the hotdog hatch and mingles with the pizza aromas.

‘Bloodlust,’ says Ragnar.

‘The hunt?’

‘Our forests aren’t as big as Utgard but our quotas are better. The Edlund family pull strings, or so some people suspect.’ He taps the side of his nose. ‘I don’t hunt myself, can’t stand the sight of blood, but I’ve heard the ponds and rivers and bogs around Visberg, in the forests covering the hillside, are excellent territory for elk and wild boar.’

‘Visberg special and a hot Yankee sausage,’ says Luka, putting down two plates.

The pizzas look excellent, even Ragnar’s fruit-salad abomination. Who the hell puts peanuts, steak and bananas on a pizza?

We eat and Ragnar fills me in on more of the town’s history. How the Hive used to be an institution for unwanted children, and then for those juveniles of a criminal disposition. Some kind of hospital facility. And how since the ’70s it’s been self-storage.

A customer walks in carrying his motorbike helmet under his arm. Except it’s an awkward carry because the helmet has large deer antlers attached to it.

‘One thing I’m curious about,’ I say. ‘What exactly is Pan Night?’

Everyone, every single customer inside this place stops eating, stops chatting, and turns to face us. Ragnar puts down his knife and fork and chews, and his sky-blue eyes bore into mine. The antler-helmet guy looks at me with his mouth wide open.

Ragnar swallows and wipes his mouth with a paper napkin.

They’re still looking. All of them. Waiting. They’ve stopped chatting, and most of them have even stopped chewing.

‘It’s…’ he begins, and then he clears his throat. ‘Whatever you’ve heard from outside Visberg I can tell you categorically that there is no such thing as Pan Night. Not anymore.’

7

The other diners resume chewing their crayfish pizzas and their kebab-meat pizzas and the volume in the room returns to normal levels.

Ragnar gives me a look that says, Hurry up and eat your bloody pizza. And whatever you do, don’t ask anymore questions about Pan Night.

The whole room watches as we leave.

Sunshine outside: cool October sunshine. It picks out the pigment in the apples. Apples on the grass and apples on the trees. Greens and reds and the burnt oranges of fruit on the turn.

‘I have an important appointment later, so let’s get on with it,’ says Ragnar, his tone curt.

He opens the door to ‘Mind Games.’

We pass through a black curtain. Another. Down a short corridor. More black sheets hanging from every wall. The floor is painted velvet-black. The kind of specialist paint that absorbs light. The sun cannot penetrate back here. They should have taken a lease on the shady side of the street.

I know what this place is. Mind Games is my kind of place.