She washed her hands and studied herself in the mirror. Her skin was punctured where the blow had struck her nose and the blood that had seeped out had dried like a black tear. She wet a napkin and gently dabbed it against the wound.

She saw a lone mosquito hovering behind her in the mirror and for some reason, the thought of someone other than her having let it into the bathroom revolted her.

The woman at the till was from South East Asia. A small pink flower floated in the black river of her hair. She avoided making eye contact and seemed cross. When Diana asked what kinds of snus they had, she opened the cabinet and turned away and when they waited for the card reader to approve the payment, she stared at the card reader. Then she suddenly slammed her hand down on the counter. Diana was terrified. She didn’t realise the woman had been aiming for a mosquito until she cursed and waved her hand at it.

After a while, a little man appeared behind the till. He gave her directions in sing-song Norwegian and took out a small map that he unfolded and pointed at. Basically, she just had to follow the river. She was supposed to take the E6 motorway all the way down to Karasjok and then head toward Kautokeino and down toward Finland and once she got to Finland, she should drive toward Kilpisjärvi. That would take her to Karesuando. He repeated it like a chant: Karasjok, Kautokeino, Kilpisjärvi. And Karesuando. Four Ks. Five with Kiruna.

She got back in her car and emptied her carrier bag of supplies on the passenger seat. Three chocolate bars by the name of Hobby, two bottles of Coke and a tin of mint-flavoured Skruf snus. She scarfed some chocolate and washed it down with Coke. Every bite hurt so bad she grinned like a malevolent old hag throughout.

*

The road never strayed far from the river, which came and went behind the birch trees. She regretted not asking how far it might be. Three hundred miles, six hundred miles, she had no earthly idea. This was unfamiliar territory. The heart of Sápmi. She had never been north of Abisko before. Yes, she had. No, she hadn’t. Her head, her poor head. One moment, she was thinking about the station manager who had imported a wife – a catalogue hag, or CH, as Håkan liked to put it – a woman who seemed to hate her work and maybe her whole life up here among the mosquitoes and reindeer in the Far North, and she wondered if they had any children and if so what they looked like and what identities they would develop as they grew up.