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she murmured to herself. ‘Don’t look to either side. Keep your eyes on the road. Don’t look into the dark.’
    The road out to the cabin was longer than she’d thought. By now she was regretting the whole venture. She had sobered up and wanted to turn around. She looked over her shoulder, but she could no longer see the hotel, which was somewhere far below her. It was almost midnight, and they all had to get up at six in the morning to work. What was she thinking? Finally, a blue shed appeared at the side of the road. Relief made her dizzy. She had to be close. And the cabin lights could supposedly be seen from outdoors. She tried to remember what Markus had said.
    ‘Leave the bike at the shed. The path is too rough for a bike. Walk twenty metres to your right and down the slope towards the sea. Be careful. It’s really steep. You’ll see the light from the paraffin lamps and the fire burning in the fireplace through the window. The light will guide you.’
    She jumped off the bike and leaned it against the shed. She couldn’t hear the wind turbine any more. The sound was drowned out by the increasing roar of the sea. She walked down the slope and glimpsed a faint light a hundred metres away. That was lucky. Otherwise, she would never have dared go through what seemed like impenetrable thickets. She had a hard time making her way forward. Several times she stumbled over roots and loose stones. Branches slapped at her face, and she bumped into trees that she couldn’t see in the dark.
    Suddenly, without warning, the light went out in the cabin, and it was pitch black all around her.

JOHAN BERG JOLTED awake. He was lying in bed in Roma, feeling sweaty from the nightmare he’d been having. In his dream he’d started smoking again. How banal. Reluctantly, he climbed out of bed, careful not to wake Emma. The stone floor felt cold under his bare feet. He used the toilet and then went out to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and looked at the digital clock on the cooker. It was a quarter past midnight. A sense of uneasiness still lingered from his dream, and he was too restless to go back to bed. He looked in on the kids. All four were staying with them this week. They were sound asleep. Eleven-year-old Sara and Filip, who was ten, were Emma’s children from her previous marriage. They came to stay every other week. Johan and Emma also had two children together: Elin, who was three and a half, and Anton, who would soon have his first birthday.
    Johan sat down on the sofa in the living room and looked out at the garden. It was partially lit by the white glow of the street lamps. The apple trees had lost almost all their leaves. He was not looking forward to winter. He listened to the wind blowing outside the window. That damned wind. He still wasn’t used to the winters on Gotland. They seldom had what he considered a real winter. The paltry amount of snow usually lasted only a few days before melting and disappearing. Elin and Anton had really had only one chance to play in the snow, and that was when they’d gone to visit his mother in Rönninge, a suburb south of Stockholm where Johan had grown up. In a few years he was hoping that they’d be able to go to the mountains at least once a year. That was something he’d done before he met Emma. She, on the other hand, had never been skiing.
    He yawned. He ought to go back to bed, because he had to go to work in the morning. Johan liked his job as a reporter in the local Visby office of the Regional News division. He was back at work now, after taking a six-month paternity leave, and he had to admit that he looked forward to every single workday. Of course, he had enjoyed being at home with Anton, and also with Elin on those days when she wasn’t at the day nursery. But all the daily chores, the lack of stimulation and little contact with other adults had taken their toll on him. Much more than he’d ever imagined. Maybe it was different for men who