More voices from the murk. Words I can’t make out. Torchlight. A radio.

Thord steps through the fog and says, ‘Are you okay, Tuvs?’

I nod.

‘She okay?’

‘Yeah.’

He walks over to the other guy and they chat and then Thord gestures for the plain-clothes cop to come and stand with us. Chief Björn and Noora arrive. We’re told to move further back and wait.

Noora takes down the woman’s name and contact details and then she tapes up the scene. She doesn’t look at me, she just sticks blue-and-white striped police tape from pine tree to birch, from stump to boulder.

Others arrive and the fog lifts some more.

Lights are erected on tripods. The scene is photographed. There are people here putting on white zip-up suits.

Through the mists the striped police tape looks like lasers at a nightclub.

The Chief walks to us.

‘Are you alright?’

The woman and I both nod.

‘We’re going to need statements from you both. Can you accompany me to Gavrik police department.’

‘I need to make a phone call,’ she says.

‘You can do that from my police vehicle.’

‘I’ll follow in my truck.’

He nods and sighs. ‘Terrible business.’

We walk together through the trees and there’s a dull ache at the back of my jaw. A molar or a wisdom tooth. The path is even and the air has cleared to the point where I can see at least ten metres ahead. With the Chief here it’s not like walking through a dark place. He has a gun on his hip and he gives off the kind of confidence you have when you’ve been raised in forest country. Like nothing bad could ever happen to him.

Visberg hill is a line of police, coroner, and other emergency vehicles. The blue lights strobe up into the wet pine canopy and dance off the surface water of the ditches.

I follow Chief Björn and the woman down the hill in my Hilux. My legs are tired. I’m not hungry, just exhausted. The hazy image of that rough, severed neck will be engraved on my mind until the day I die. I will try to delete it, or at least archive it, but I already know I will fail.

The forty-minute drive back to Gavrik passes in seconds. A blur. A bad dream. We take the long route back because of the driving conditions, I guess. The Chief always prides himself on doing things the correct way. The safe way. I get a pain in the pit of my stomach as we pass between McDonalds and ICA Maxi, the two gateposts of Toytown. A pain and an ache all in one.

Gavrik is deserted. October. Drizzle and fog. Why wouldn’t it be.

I park up in my space behind Gavrik Posten and walk over. The shadow of the Grimberg Liquorice factory is lost to the mists.