Klara peers into the gloom, searching for Grandma’s slender figure through sheets of snow. She still moves smoothly, surely and quickly across the uneven surface. It’ll be some time before Klara has to convince her to leave Aspöja, where she and Grandpa have lived all their lives, and where Klara herself grew up. Grandma is well over seventy, but for a few more years she’ll manage the everyday hardships that come with living on an island in the archipelago. And then? Klara doesn’t even want to think about it. Not yet. Not today.

Klara thought only Grandma’s and Gabriella’s cars were still in the parking lot. But something slightly further down the road catches her eye. In the darkness it’s hard to make out, but Klara thinks it looks like a shadow jumping into a car. Then the dull thud of a door closing and a motor starting, dampened by the snow and the wind. No headlights are turned on. But Klara could swear a car backs out and disappears down the road. With a couple of quick steps she catches up with Grandma.

‘Who was that?’ she says, pointing to the spot the car just left. ‘I thought everyone was already at the parish house by now.’

Grandma turns around and follows her finger, but there is only darkness there now. She shrugs. ‘Maybe somebody couldn’t find their car keys until now.’ She turns and smiles at Klara. ‘We’re not so young any more, you know.’

Klara turns around and sees Gabriella coming down to the parking lot a few metres behind them with the phone in her hand, a worried look in her eyes. She gestures that she’ll follow them in her own car.

‘Maybe,’ Klara says. But something gnaws at her. Maybe it’s just habit after what she’s been through in the past few years, just the after-effects of suspicion and fear from twice landing in the middle of strange and dangerous circumstances. But when they cross Highway 210 driving to the parish house, Klara throws a glance westward, towards the mainland. Halfway up the hill she thinks she sees two red tail lights in the snow. A car parked by the road? She lingers on the sight while Grandma drives them to the parish house. Someone lost in the snow? But it’s unusual to see unfamiliar cars here at this time of year. She feels a tingle run down her spine. Something doesn’t seem right.

5 August

Beirut

It all happens fast; maybe it’s the alcohol or the trip or the party. But it’s not just that, it’s something more, something else. Something about those eyes, that look. Some gleam of adventure in them.

‘I’ll be by the stairs,’ the voice says quite close to Jacob’s ear. ‘It’s better if we aren’t seen leaving together.’