‘Honey, I can’t bring her inside. It’s best for the forensic team to be the ones to move her. But you’re right, I should go out there. Is the weapon still out there? Did you see it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll go out there and secure it, and cover her with tarpaulin.’ I nod, trying not to think of the gruesome task Eirik has ahead of him, but when I close my eyes I see her, outlined beneath a shroud of snow, one hand curled like a claw. ‘And tomorrow morning I’ll go for help first thing, it’s going to take at least two men to get you out of here. It would be straight-up dangerous for me to try to get you down to the road in the middle of the night in a snowstorm. The safest place until tomorrow morning, is right here,’ he says, and his fingers start moving again, gently tracing little shapes on the skin behind my ears, before moving down to my throat and collarbone, pressing his fingers against the soft and firm parts of me under his fingertips.

Eirik detangles himself from me and places my head gently back down on the sofa.

‘If I don’t go deal with her right now, I’ll talk myself out of it,’ he says, stretching his limbs and staring out the window at the stormy night.

‘Be careful,’ I whisper. He nods and listens intently as I explain where I found her.

When he has gone I have to fight the urge to get the MacBook back out and quickly read the next section – I have to know what Leah was about to say about Eirik but I don’t want to risk him bursting back into the cabin and asking questions about what I’m reading. I’m glad I don’t because he returns after less than ten minutes carrying the rifle, his face pale and twisted into a terrorized grimace. He places the rifle back in its cabinet, then I hear him in the bathroom, retching.

‘She did this herself,’ he says, when he emerges from the bathroom after a long while.

‘What? Why do you think that?’

‘She removed the shoe and sock on her right foot and pulled the trigger with her toe.’ I try to picture this scenario. Leah, so desperate she got the hunting rifle from its cabinet, took it outside, selected an apparently random spot on the hillside just off the path, and fired it straight into her own face. But I can’t.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Completely. Jesus, what a sight. That poor woman. I saw something similar once, when I was in the military. A guy in my barracks blew his brains out with a rifle. Same thing, used his toe.

‘I… I just can’t even—’

‘Shh, my love. You’re safe now. You need to sleep. Everything will be better tomorrow.’

62

Kristina