When she reaches the avenue she sees both Klein’s and Elisabet Vidje’s vehicles by the lodge. She parks her car by the side of the road. The lodge is surrounded by a hawthorn hedge so tall that all she can see is the low roof. Next to the two parked cars is an opening in the hedge. The wooden house is painted green, with an abundance of decorative white woodwork around the porch and above the windows, and yet there is something desolate about the place. It’s as if it is hiding away behind the hawthorns right at the end of the avenue, and prefers to keep itself to itself.

She hears voices from behind the building. As she rounds the corner she sees a storage shed. The double doors are wide open, and a deer is hanging in the middle of the room. A hook has been inserted beneath the animal’s chin and attached to a chain hanging from a beam. The deer is so big that its hind feet are touching the concrete floor. Anna tries to remember the little she learned about deer in school; she knows there are two kinds, but can’t recall which is which. Klein and Elisabet seem to be admiring the creature. They both turn when they hear her approaching.

‘Isn’t he magnificent?’ Elisabet says.

‘He is. What kind is he?’

‘A red deer.’ Klein sounds amused at her ignorance. ‘Fallow deer are smaller and have palmate horns. Not like this beast. I got him down at Bensige early this morning. He was worth waiting for.’ Klein pats the deer’s neck a couple of times. Anna can see dried blood on his hands.

‘Klein wanted to shoot him last year, but I asked him to wait,’ Elisabet says. ‘He’s a breeding stag, and I wanted to give him one more season to pass on his genes.’ She smiles, but her eyes look tired, and the part of her face not covered by her shawl is pale and lined.

‘Why shoot him at all?’ Anna asks.

‘If we didn’t, sooner or later he’d wander further east along the ridge and onto Trolleberg’s land. Some trophy hunter would pay a fortune to bring him down, then take his head and mount it on a wall in Germany or Denmark. And the meat would finish up in a food hall in Stockholm.’

Elisabet shakes her head.

‘He was born and grew up on the ridge, his children and grandchildren are grazing on its slopes. So we want to keep him here with us, right to the end.’ She also pats his neck – tenderly, affectionately.

‘Karl-Johan doesn’t approve of hunting,’ Anna says, without really knowing why. Both Klein and Elisabet raise their heads a fraction when they hear his name. The movement is identical and simultaneous – almost comically so.

‘No,’ Klein says, glancing at Elisabet.