The police car with its jigsaw of yellow and blue squares was parked in the middle of the village. Like some kind of brightly coloured artwork touring the rural north. The man who had kicked Stava was standing a few feet away from it. He was holding a small pistol. He tried to spin it around his index finger like a gunslinger, but failed and almost dropped it.

‘What happened?’ Stava asked.

Instead of answering, he aimed the gun at Stava, pretended to shoot her and blew smoke from the barrel.

It was only at that point Anders realised there were people in the car. It was Erasmus and a police officer; they were in the back seat. The officer had his hands pressed against his ears. But it didn’t look like he was covering his ears because he didn’t want to listen to Erasmus; it looked more like he was trying to crush his own skull.

*

After a while, Ipa returned with the female officer, dragging her by the hand to make her walk faster. The wolf brought up the rear.

Mikko opened the driver-side door and shoved the woman inside. She just sat there with her hands on the wheel.

‘I don’t know if I know how to drive a car,’ she said.

‘You’re a copper,’ Mikko said. ‘All coppers know how to drive.’

‘I’m a copper,’ she said and studied her uniform. Then she looked at her colleague, who was now in the passenger seat, gazing out the window. ‘We’re coppers.’

Ipa had her hands in her jacket pockets.

‘I don’t think she can drive. Not for a bit. We don’t want them driving into a ditch up here, do we?’

This prospect didn’t seem to worry Erasmus, who was scratching the wolf’s neck.

‘I’m a copper,’ the woman said and squeezed the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. ‘All coppers know how to drive.’

‘Goodbye then,’ Erasmus said and tipped his hat. ‘I’m sorry we can’t be of more help.’

‘To be honest,’ the woman said, ‘I don’t remember what we needed help with.’ She looked at her colleague, a man with a brown beard.

‘My God, I really feel like I know you!’

The man smiled awkwardly, clearly embarrassed to be so confused he didn’t know where he was, and maybe not even who he was.

Ipa leaned in.

‘Then it probably wasn’t important,’ she said.

‘No, it probably wasn’t,’ the woman agreed and started the engine.

The police car rolled away very slowly and turned with blinking indicators. It took them a long time to turn around. Ipa waved when they drove past, but the woman was much too focused on the driving to see her and the other officer was crying into his hand.

Anders pressed himself against Stava.

‘Are they looking for us?’ he whispered.

‘There they are,’…