We don’t talk. We’ve seen too much for chitchat. But the air is better here. It’s too heavy back by the body. Dense with death. It’s suffocating.

‘What did that?’ she asks, with a strong accent I can’t quite pinpoint. Lebanese? Syrian? ‘What could do that?’

She’s pointing over at the body and her fingertip is red.

‘I don’t know. How long have you been here?’

She just stares at the man on the moss-covered granite. At her coat concealing his gaping neck wound.

‘How long have you been here?’ I ask again, louder this time.

Her eyes snap to me. ‘Half an hour, maybe,’ she says. ‘I don’t know. I was out looking for mushrooms when the clouds came down. I got lost. On the way back to the road I almost fell over him.’

I offer her some spearmint gum and she takes it.

We both chew and the mint helps.

‘I saw it. The wound. The skin and the…’

She trails off. Her Swedish is excellent but I have to focus to understand.

‘Did you see anyone else around?’ I ask.

She shakes her head.

‘I screamed for help. I couldn’t just leave him out here all alone, but I wanted to. I wanted to run away.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

She doesn’t cry. We don’t touch hands or arms. We just stand very close in this wild place. A gunshot rings out and she ducks.

‘Elk hunt,’ I say.

‘I know,’ she says, standing up straight once again.

Her teeth start chattering.

‘Wear my coat for a while.’

‘No, I’m okay.’

I look back at her coat. The neon fabric and the growing darkness and fog affording this headless man some modicum of privacy, some tiny shred of dignity.

I take out mittens from my pockets and offer them to her and she takes them without looking at me. To cover her red fingers more than to protect her from cold. To distance herself from the blood.

‘What’s your––’

‘Alright, what’s the situation here,’ booms a loud voice from somewhere in the fog. A torch beam swings over us and then a man steps closer. From his demeanour I’d say he’s police.

‘Officer, over there.’

He’s not in police uniform. Must be a plain-clothes officer or some kind of park ranger.

The man shines his torch over at the body. The reflective patches of the coat shine back. A wet slug climbing up the dead man’s boot shines back. The drying blood shines back.

‘Please move away,’ says the man. ‘Move back now.’

We do as he says.

The cop uses a stick to lift the corner of the coat and then he stumbles back in much the same way I did. Except he staggers away from the scene and starts to gag.

The woman covers her eyes with her hand.