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way to the floor.
    Directly opposite the barn was the building they called Hybblet. It looked like an old toilet block, and that is what it was, in a way. It had white fibre cement cladding, and with the roof covered in snow the place seemed to dissolve and recede until the only clear features were the door and the dark window frames, and the plastic pipes protruding like yellow elephant trunks taped to the base of the drainpipe. On the gable end was a satellite dish, but of course there was no television—Börje had attached it there to make the house look like any other house. Presumably that had been Lennart’s idea.
    On the front porch stood a pile of empty blue plastic storage boxes beside a row of black sacks, filled to the top. Flattened cardboard boxes poked out of one. The snow had blown in and settled in the folds of the sacks.
    â€˜Have you been cleaning up?’
    When there was no answer he turned round and looked at Ejvor’s face. It showed no expression. That meant it was her.
    â€˜When did you do it?’
    â€˜This morning.’
    â€˜But we weren’t supposed to clean up. We were meant to wait.’
    She put down the paper. She even stood up.
    â€˜Well, it won’t make things any better if it’s filthy in there, that’s for sure!’
    She spat out the words without looking at him, as if they had sprung from a suppressed rage, and Seved accepted them insilence. He knew she was not angry with him, but that was not the point. If he continued, if he reminded her once again what Lennart had said, then she would take her anger out on him, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs.
    But it was already too late because she had gone out into the hall. The outer door opened and he heard her swear. He knew one of the hares was taking the brunt.
    Seved finished his coffee, which by now was cold. He felt incredibly tired. His eyes fastened on the back page of the newspaper, a copy of
Västerbottens-Kuriren
that had to be at least a week old. There was an advertisement in red letters, which to him appeared as meaningless shapes.
    You sleep well after a beating, Börje usually said.
    At night he could only lie there, glancing every few minutes at the clock radio, because he knew when it usually kicked off. As soon as he thought he heard something he would hold his breath. That was the worst thing. Waiting for it to start. Because some nights nothing happened.
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    They plodded through snow a metre deep. Susso glanced towards the ice. The bottom of a boat, pulled up on the shore, stood out like a sky-blue sliver against a field of white so flat it was impossible to distinguish the shoreline. In the distance she could make out a mountain, but it could just as easily have been a patch of dark sky. A cold wind was blowing up from the lake and it stung her cheeks.
    Edit pointed towards some leaning birch trees.
    â€˜There,’ she said. ‘At the edge. That’s where he stood.’
    Susso continued walking until she reached the trees Edit had pointed out. It was such a struggle to walk through the deep snow that she had to swing her arms to keep her balance.
    â€˜Here?’ she asked, turning round, one hand on her hat.
    Edit nodded. Susso leaned forwards slightly and peered in among the sparse pine trees. The neighbours’ house, a white single-storey building painted blue around the windows, was visible through the trunks only a hundred metres away. She took a step sideways to keep her balance, but it was difficult and she had to put her hand down on the snow for support.
    â€˜Is that all he did? Stand there?’ she shouted.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Edit. ‘Grinning.’
    She rearranged her shawl and with her head bowed stepped into the track Susso had made. Her long waistcoat trailed behind her.
    â€˜Perhaps he was only making a face,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t easy to see what he looked like. But I think he was laughing, because