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Annie picked her up and ran off into the tall grass, every step she took raking up a cloud of the stinging insects. Up on the store stand it was relatively free of them. They seemed to stick to grass and foliage.
    Buttercups and red campion glowed in the evening sun on the grassy slopes. The lake was still just as calm, but the colour had deepened. From the community centre came the thump of an electric bass and keyboard riffs hugely amplified through the loudspeakers. The four men came out of the little shop, got into the car and started drinking beer from bottles, leaving the car doors open and their legs outside. The youngest stayed on the steps of the shop and belched ostentatiously after emptying his bottle, which he threw down on the gravel. The others laughed. The shopkeeper came out and said something in a low voice, then took the bottle back in with him, after a glance at Annie on the other side of the road. She presumed he had no proper licence so the purchase had been illegal.
    More cars came skidding on to the gravel at the roadside, nearly all of them full of men, young men. She couldn’t make out what they were shouting at each other, but could hear some were Norwegians. Most of them appeared to be good-naturedly drunk.
    Cars were also drawing up at the community centre and the instruments were rasping and thumping inside as they sound checked. Outside the little shop, a couple of Norwegians were teasing the young driver of the Volvo. He was now quite drunk, stumbling and swaying as he headed back to the car, singing in a slurred voice a short song she found it hard to catch. Anyhow, it caused some amusement and so he kept singing it again, over and over as he strode round in his tight trousers. In the end she could make out the words:
     
    ‘What the fuck
    Dad’s cock’s in front
    Just as well
    Mum’s got a cunt.’
     
    He pirouetted clumsily like a bear and almost fell over in front of one of the cars containing an older man in a cap on which it said Röbäck’s Garage.
    ‘Bloody hell, Väine, you don’t have to tell Evert about your dad and your mother,’ shouted the shopkeeper, causing loud and long laughter from the other cars. There was an abrupt silence when one of the men got out of the Volvo, the fattest of them, a large man with curly brown hair that looked sweaty under his peaked cap. He wasn’t dressed like the others, but in jeans and a thick blue sweatshirt. Strange, wearing that in the middle of summer, she thought. She noticed a sheath knife dangling below the hem at the back.
    He strode up to the steps. It was just like watching a film. He raised his hand and she saw they were to witness a show of strength. The hand was rigid, the little finger and the outer edge turned towards the flag hanging out from the wall by the door. He struck out with the rigid hand and the flagpole snapped with a crack. The shopkeeper vanished inside and closed the door. The man who had snapped the flagpole strolled back to the Volvo and crawled into the back. Another man pulled in the youth who had sung the song, switched on and drove down towards the community centre. The other cars followed.
    The music had started up properly now. More cars kept appearing. But Dan did not come.
     

It was not easy to get hold of Torsten Brandberg and his four older sons. Åke Vemdal and Birger Torbjörnsson gave up after a hour’s random driving round and asking, but they found them when they returned to the camping site out at Tangen. All five were drinking beer in Roland Fjellström’s office. Nor was questioning them particularly profitable. Torsten did not deny hitting Vidart, but said it was in self-defence. As far as the rake handle was concerned, he said he had held it out to protect himself.
    ‘He was unconscious for over twenty minutes,’ said Åke. ‘At least.’
    ‘And you believe that? Any road, he was on his feet when I left.’
    The sons grinned. Torsten looked calm, almost amused as he sat there, his