He put his cutlery down on his plate. He picked up a napkin he had trapped under his beer bottle and wiped his lips. Then he crossed his arms and studied me. A string of gold glinted inside the collar of his polo shirt.

‘I hardly think us worrying about it will help.’

‘It bothers me that you’re not worried at all.’

‘It’s going to be fine.’

‘Stop saying that; you have no way of knowing that.’

He crumpled up his napkin and leaned forward and pushed it down the neck of his bottle.

‘I have such a strong feeling it’s going to work out, you might as well call it knowing.’

‘And I have a strong feeling it’s not going to work out and that it’s going to make everything worse. I’m the only one who knows exactly what kind of forces they are dealing with. I heard you laughing and talking about silver bullets and whatever else. Like it was a joke! Like you don’t think this is real.’

‘They’ve crossed paths with the squirrel, and I’ve told them about the wolves the girls saw in the village. So I’d say they have a pretty good idea of what they’re dealing with.’

‘And you’re just sitting there, gorging yourself on that disgusting pizza.’

‘It wasn’t even a little bit disgusting.’

‘And how long can it take! How long have we been sitting here!’

‘Gudrun. These lads, they’ve never let me down and they never will. There’s something almost religious about it. About our relationship. It’s not properly of this world.’

‘Religious?’

‘My eyes bloody well tear up when I talk about it.’

At that moment, his phone, which was sitting on the table, emitted a signal, the heroically tooting blast of a horn from Sherwood Forest. He held the phone up to me to inform me he had received a text.

‘Is it them?’

He pushed his glasses up to his forehead.

‘Yep.’

*

We drove back to the petrol station. Roland climbed into the Chevy and I drove behind him and that hideous doll’s head. He set out toward Pajala, which I thought was odd, and I found passing the turnoff to Susso’s house even odder.

After a few miles, we turned down a forest road that we followed to a clearcut. There was nothing there, and I suppose that was the idea.

Unable as I was to stay in the car, I got out and walked up and down the road in the stagnant heat. Roland stood gazing out across the devastated landscape and I could tell he was in no mood to talk.

After more than thirty minutes, I thought it was odd they hadn’t come and was just about to ask him to check his phone for more texts when I remembered we had both turned our phones off at the pizzeria.