Jacob can’t believe it’s true. For a moment he feels something almost like relief. Then he sees Yassim’s face in front of him. His lifeless arm in the car. The blood spreading from his shoulder. The light in his eyes slowly going out.

He bends forward and looks at Klara under the cold lights of the lamps outside. She seems wide awake. Did she sleep at all? Her dark hair is a little messy. There’s something sexy about her, Jacob thinks. That determined nose, those high cheekbones. There’s something about her that makes him curious. She looks like somebody who’s been through a lot and come out on the other side stronger for it.

‘Did you eat some gape-soup?’ she asks in a surprisingly broad, exaggerated Östergötland accent.

‘Excuse me?’ he says self-consciously. ‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘Ah,’ she says, turning to him with a smile. ‘Just something we used to say in the archipelago where I grew up if someone stared at you.’

*

As they drive across the bridge, the semi starts to slow and the driver turns to Klara with a troubled expression. ‘We have a problem,’ he says, pointing to the tollbooth.

Ahead of them a row of trucks is slowly inching forward. A few cars are doing the same thing in another line, but it’s too early for commuters.

‘What’s going on?’ Klara says.

‘Border control,’ he says. ‘They’re looking for something. Maybe refugees.’ He narrows his eyes at her. ‘Or maybe for you?’

‘They weren’t supposed to start checking passports until after Christmas,’ George said.

The driver shrugs. ‘I guess they’re looking for you, then?’

Klara meets his eyes calmly. ‘We got this far,’ she says. ‘Can you help us again?’

He sighs and rolls in slowly behind the last truck in the queue.

‘You remember what I said?’ he asks.

‘That you hate cops?’ Klara replies.

‘That I’m stupid. Jump back with the others.’

Slowly they roll forward and stop at what looks like a temporary blockage, right after the tollbooth. Jacob hears the driver open the door. ‘What’s this?’ he asks.

‘Routine check,’ answers a female voice in English.

‘What are you looking for?’ the driver asks.

‘Like I said, routine check. May I please see your passport and will you climb out of the vehicle.’

‘No,’ the driver says to Jacob’s surprise. ‘If this is a routine check, I refuse to show my passport. Schengen Agreement. Routine checks at borders are prohibited. My shipping agent can sue you.’

‘What in…’ says the woman. ‘Now you do what I say. Get out of the vehicle. And put down the phone.’

‘No,’ says the driver. ‘No, I won’t. You said this is a routine check. That’s illegal. So I’m recording this.’