“I’ve made a whiskey sour—that much I can tell you. But I thought we might start with a glass of champagne.”

“Oh my—she’s brought out the big guns, has my beloved wife.”

“Wasn’t she meant to?”

“Naturally. This is the first day of the rest of our lives. What about food?”

“In that matter, you will have to be patient. Drive carefully—I expect it’s getting really slippery.”

“Yep. Love you, baby!”

“Love you too. Kiss kiss.”

How far did he have to go? Twenty-five kilometres, perhaps? Forty-five minutes in these conditions. He drove with exaggerated care. Nothing could go wrong. Not this time—not when there was so much at stake. When he entered the bend by the old limestone quarry he slowed down even more, thinking about the horse farm they would get and about Kerstin in welly boots and a posh oilskin jacket. Then he noticed they had taken down the barrier between the road and ravine, and he thought that January seemed an exceptionally poorly chosen time to do so.

It was at that moment that he caught sight of the oncoming car as it appeared around the next corner. It was on the wrong side of the road, travelling at a speed that a child could have worked out was inappropriate in this kind of place and in these conditions. The Audi did nothing to avoid a collision, so it was up to Karl-Erik to take control and brake, potentially moving onto the wrong side of the road. Potentially, since there was still a possibility that the Audi would move back to its side of the road and brake to avoid a head-on collision. But the Audi just drove on at breakneck speed, and it was doubtful whether it slowed down at all. At the last moment, Karl-Erik realised he would have to act—he would have to swerve. So he did, and regretted it in the same moment, because he could feel that the tires had no grip on the asphalt. The car slid almost sideways across the road before hurtling off the edge and through the air, tipping backward in an improbable way that could never, never, never end well.