Parked under the sign displaying the fuel prices was a lorry with the text ‘Rönnberg’s Fish’ on it and next to that a cart that was a kiosk and from which Harr was now walking toward us. Tall and lanky and comically bow-legged. He had traded his hat in for a baseball cap.

He stopped briefly and bent down to me like a traffic officer and I had no choice but to roll down my window. He was holding a paper plate and had food both in his mouth and his beard. Little clumps of mashed potato that moved when he chewed. He grinned and pointed to the Chevy with his plastic fork.

‘I’ve bought CDs for you.’

‘CDs?’

‘My album.’

‘Yes, the one with the bus.’

‘Exactly, the one with the bus. Twenty copies. I reckon that’ll do you.’

I nodded, which made him doff his cap and walk on.

I was surprised it wasn’t that guy Ensimmäinen who climbed out of the car, but a young man in his twenties. I had no idea who he was and was angry with Roland for not telling me he had involved yet another person, and a young one at that, with everything that entailed.

They stood there, talking. It didn’t seem to be a discussion. They laughed fairly often and hard and I thought that was inappropriate given what they were about to do. Though I suppose it was a way of releasing some tension. It struck me I had never seen Roland with friends before, or other men of any description, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of him or me.

After a few minutes, he returned. He climbed into his seat and rummaged around the centre console, eventually pulling out a phone charger. The string of a reflector was entangled in the spiral cord; he sighed through his nose and started untangling it.

‘Who’s that guy?’

‘Pontus. It’s Harr’s lad.’

‘So he’s going too?’

‘He’s going too.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’

‘Because I didn’t know he was coming.’

I stayed in the car, mulling things over. Then I opened the door and went over to join them. That was, obviously, an incredible intrusion. Pontus smiled at me, but in an awkward way. His strawberry-blonde hair was shaped into a scraggly mohawk. I grabbed his shirtsleeve and pulled him aside.

‘I don’t know what your dad’s told you about this undertaking or whatever we should call it, but I want you to be aware that it’s going to be dangerous in ways you can’t imagine.’

‘Don’t scare the boy,’ Harr said.

Pontus looked at me with one eye, squeezing the other shut against the sun.

‘I know it’s dangerous all right.’