‘No, I’m trying to use my head. In situations like this, you have to keep cool. Very cool. If he is – was – one of Susso’s neighbours or a boyfriend, there may very well be people who know he was there. Or who could guess. And if the police go out there looking for him, there’s no telling what they might find. What with their dogs and everything. And if we’re going to move him, we should do it as soon as possible. It’s not pleasant, but we can’t let that stop us.’

‘I’m going to let that stop me. I’m not digging up a corpse. That’s where I draw the line. When we buried him, we weren’t ourselves entirely, I’ve realised since. I don’t even think I could bear going to Vittangi now. I’m not doing it, Roland, I’m not doing it! I’d rather go to prison.’

‘You mean that?’

‘Yes, I mean that.’

He sat there, looking at me.

‘Why don’t you sleep on it.’

‘I can’t sleep.’

‘Take this.’

‘I don’t want it.’

‘Drink it.’

I knocked back the whisky and pulled a face at the oily liquid that made my eyes tear up. Then I went into the bedroom. After lying down, I reached for my phone on the nightstand. Nothing new. My head spun when I closed my eyes and I could hear the tinkling of the bottleneck against the edge of a cup from the kitchen.

Ipa had ripped the tape off …

Ipa had ripped the tape off Susso’s mouth and cleaned her battered face with wet wipes, gently and not without affection. Crumpled up and red with blood, the wipes were now littering the floor around Lennart’s feet. They reeked of perfume as well.

The car slowed down. There was a sign by the side of the road. At the top of it, someone had written ‘MURHAAJA!’ in pink paint that had run down across the village’s name and the rest of the sign.

They turned off on a shady gravel road. After a few hundred yards, they came to a boom barrier. It was brand new, a bright red and yellow symbol. Ipa climbed out, opened the barrier, got back in the car, drove through, climbed out, closed the barrier, got back in the car and drove on.

The village lay next to a lake and consisted of about ten houses. Spruce-covered mountains rose up on the other side of the lake, which was being clawed by a stiff breeze. Some of the houses were surrounded by tarpaulins that blocked them from view; they drove in through an opening in one of the billowing enclosures.