The forest opened out as he reached the muddy yard surrounding Svartgården. Three dilapidated buildings huddled in the gloom beneath the trees, as if they were trying to hide. Rusty agricultural tools and machinery lay among the nettles.

He’d been here many times before, usually with Erik Nyberg, the castle administrator, and they’d always been met by a pack of yapping terriers before he’d even switched off the engine. Today there wasn’t a dog in sight. The place was quiet; even the birds weren’t making much noise on this spring morning. A strange, oppressive silence filled the air.

Little Stefan remained standing by his truck for a minute or so as he tucked a plug of tobacco beneath his top lip and waited for Lasse or one of his women to poke their head out of the door and ask what the fuck he wanted, but nothing happened. Lasse’s red pick-up was nowhere to be seen, nor was the battered old Ford the women usually drove. He glanced at his watch: seven thirty. Who went out at this early hour?

He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. A small dog was peering around the corner of the smithy; it was little more than a puppy.

‘Hello! Come on then,’ Little Stefan said, without really knowing why. The dog took a couple of cautious steps, keeping its belly low, tail tucked between its legs. Then it suddenly stopped and stiff ened, as if it had heard something.

Little Stefan turned his head, but the house was still in darkness. When he looked back, the dog was gone.

He set off up the concrete steps leading to the front door; halfway up he realised it was ajar. He paused, unsure of what to do. On the wall next to the door he saw a half-metre-tall figure woven from fresh green branches. His grandfather had made one every spring and hung it on the front door.

So that the Green Man will ride on through the night. So that he won’t stop at our house.

‘Hello? Anyone home?’

The words bounced off the walls and came back like a distorted echo, as if it were someone else’s voice. Someone who was watching him from the darkness. Imitating him, mocking him.

Little Stefan looked at the creepy fi gure again, and for a second he was ready to run back down the steps, jump in his truck and get out of there. Tell Erik Nyberg that no one had been home, and reading the water meter would have to wait. However, he was a grown man with a job to do, not some little kid who was scared of ghosts.

He knocked on the door frame.

‘Hello?’ he shouted again. ‘Anyone home? It’s Little Stefan, from the castle.’

No response.