The soldiers laid the dead man on the stretcher and carried him out. The others went down to the yard, Hargel still holding the uniform, he wasn’t finished with it, turned out the pockets and found some paper that had disintegrated, showed an interest in the military insignia, held up a pair of spectacles with only one lens and peered through it.

She asked them if they wanted some coffee.

Hargel said, gruffly, no and asked her if she knew what rank this officer had held.

“No.”

Hadn’t she noticed that he was a colonel?

“No.”

He said something else, and Henriksen asked what she was answering “no” to.

Ingrid said she knew nothing about German ranks.

Hargel appeared to be at a loss and asked if she had any weapons.

Ingrid nodded and went in to fetch the Krag rifle, the harpoon gun and the shotgun. Hargel examined them and said the possession of weapons was illegal and passed them to the soldier who had come back from the boat.

Ingrid said they’d always had weapons, they shot eagles, porpoises, mink . . .

Hargel asked if she knew how to use them.

“Yes.”

“That one, too?” he said, pointing to the harpoon gun.

“Yes.”

He shook his head and said something to Henriksen, who ordered her to fetch any ammunition she might have.

“Enough for a whole war,” the Lensmann translated when she returned with the two boxes and the harpoons.

There then followed a lengthy discussion in German, and Ingrid was struck by how old Henriksen seemed, stooped, breathing heavily and hawking, a pale shadow of the authority he had once been, she wondered whether there was any particular reason for this.

Hargel went over to her, removed his glove and spat on a stumpy finger, ran it down her cheek and examined the soot.

“Die Frauen haben Angst,” he mumbled philosophically, women are frightened, and wiped his finger on the uniform. “Eine Beleidigung.” An insult.

He resumed his discussion with Henriksen, and Ingrid heard words like Feuer and Radio and burst out that she didn’t have a radio, and waited as if standing to attention, until Hargel asked her another question, did she live here on her own?

Yes, her aunt was in hospital and the menfolk in Lofoten.

“So there’s just you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you live off?” he said, gazing south and addressing himself to the snow-covered gardens.

Ingrid didn’t understand the question.

He asked if they had lived here throughout the war.

Ingrid said they had always lived here.

His eyes leisurely scanned the buildings and he said something about “schreckliche Armut”. Terrible poverty.

Henriksen smirked.

Ingrid said she wanted to show him something in the boat shed and they accompanied her down to the waterside, the pile of clothes, she supposed they would want to take them as well?

“They’re P.O.W. uniforms,” the Lensmann said.

Ingrid listened.

Hargel asked where she had found them.