A black SUV careened toward them and stopped just short of knocking over a little girl and her mother on the zebra crossing. From the vehicle came the sounds of loud music and wild cackling: it was a group of boys who looked not much older than eighteen. They had decorated the hood of the car and each of its doors with the picture of a white skull.

Suddenly, a man materialized out of nowhere and threw himself at the SUV with a guttural roar. He looked like the archetypal highland dweller. All they could see of his face was a long beard that emerged from beneath the hood of his cloak. He was tall and stocky, but he seemed weighed down by his clothes. His hands, protected by fingerless gloves, hammered at the metal frame of the car. Two youths stuck their heads out of the vehicle and started yelling insults at the man.

“What the hell is he doing?” said Marini.

The man threw one last, fierce punch at the car, then turned around and walked away, clearing a path through the curious crowd that had gathered to watch the scene.

Teresa tried to follow him with her eyes.

“I want to check him out,” she said. “You stay here with the kid.”

She set off at a brisk pace to try and keep up with the man. Even from a distance, the black smudge of the stranger’s silhouette through the sleet looked imposing. He moved nimbly despite his bulk, and he was not slowed down by the ice that covered the road. Teresa, on the other hand, felt as if she were skating.

They passed the town center and continued down the road that led to the old train station. Beyond that was the forest.

The man didn’t show signs of stopping, and Teresa wondered where he could be heading. She walked faster. The icy rain had thickened and the occasional solid flake had begun to fall onto the watery surface. Once they had gone past the railway, too, Teresa finally made up her mind and decided to call out to him.

“Stop!” she shouted over the whistling of the wind.

She was surprised when the stranger obeyed straight away. Until then, she had thought he mustn’t even have noticed her presence behind him, but now she realized he had known from the start.

She stopped, too, her eyes boring into the man’s back, her heart beating inexplicably faster.

He didn’t turn around but stood completely still a few meters ahead of her, his arms by his sides. He was waiting. There was something disturbing about the whole scene, and about him—something feral.

Teresa unbuttoned her coat.

“Turn around, please,” she told him. “Did you hear me?”

The man made a sideways dash and began to run.

“Hey!”