Sweat runs down into my ears, mingling with the plastic tubing of my hearing aids.

I need to make a dash for it. To get to my Hilux.

My pulse speeds up to a drumroll.

I get to my knees and lunge forward to my truck and feel the hiss of another bullet pass me. Fuck. I unlock and jump in and duck down on the front seats. Will he ambush me here? Will he shoot my tyres out? I stretch my arm and turn the key. Engine noise. I keep my head down. The noise of my wheels as I accelerate hard up the hill back toward the town I’m learning to fear.

No more bullets. Nobody driving after me.

I cough from the adrenaline and sit upright, my attention on my mirrors, my heart still pounding.

How many bullets was that? Three?

Mud all over the steering wheel.

I speed up to 120, hardly slowing to take corners, my truck flexing on its suspension. Up into Visberg town. Someone beeps their horn as I race pass Konsum and take the side-road up by Annika’s place. I leave town and drive back round the long way toward Gavrik.

I try to hook up my phone to my hearing aids but my aids are too wet.

I put my phone on speaker. Two per cent battery.

‘Thord, I’ve been shot at.’

‘What? Where are you?’

‘I’m okay.’ My words spit out twice as fast as usual. ‘I’m coming into the station.’

‘You’re not injured?’

‘I’ll be there in twenty. And––’

My phone dies.

The road back is dark. No streetlights in this part of the world. I can see nothing ahead and nothing behind. Darkness. No vehicles. Fringes of rough, unmanaged forest.

My breathing slows and so does my heart. Who the fuck shoots at someone in Sweden? In broad daylight? Blood in my mouth. I bit my lip falling to the ground. I’m cold with sweat and the adrenaline in my bloodstream is only now starting to fade. I turn the heated seat on. And the heated steering wheel. I’m shivering.

I pull up in the no-parking area outside the cop shop and open my door and run inside.

Thord’s there on the public side of the desk.

‘Come through.’

We pass through the keycode-locked door.

It’s just me and him. No Chief, no Noora. Three cells and five desks. Filing cabinets. A Big Mac box on Thord’s desk, with its fries carton flat underneath and his ketchup thimble stored neatly inside.

He places his hand on my shoulder. ‘You say you got shot at?’

I nod and all of a sudden I want to hug him. Burst into tears. Collapse. But I hold it together and say, ‘Visberg hill, close to the white-bike memorial. Three shots, I think.’