‘I would have thought a man like Utmo would be single.’

‘His wife was good-looking, too. When you consider how ugly he is. Did you see his teeth?’

‘I saw he was wearing an orthodontic brace, yes.’

‘He says it’s so that his teeth don’t go crooked.’ Aslak Krongli shook his head, with laughter in his eyes, though not in his voice. ‘But it’s the only way to make sure they don’t fall out.’

‘Tell me, was that really dynamite he was carrying on his snow – mobile?’

‘You saw it,’ Krongli said. ‘Not me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are lots of residents up here who can’t quite see the romanticism of sitting for hours with a fishing rod by the mountain lakes, but who would like to have the fish they regard as their own on the dinner table.’

‘They chuck dynamite in the lakes?’

‘As soon as the ice has gone.’

‘Isn’t that somewhat illegal?’

Krongli held up his hands in defence. ‘As I said, I didn’t see anything.’

‘No, that’s true, you only live here. Have you got dynamite, too, by any chance?’

‘Just for the garage. Which I’m planning to build.’

‘Right. What about Utmo’s gun? Looked modern with the telescopic sights and so on.’

‘Certainly is. Utmo was good at hunting bears. Until he went half blind.’

‘I saw his eye. What happened?’

‘Apparently his boy spilt a glass of acid on him.’

‘Apparently?’

Krongli rolled his shoulders. ‘Utmo is the only person left who knows what happened. His son went missing when he was fifteen. Soon afterwards his wife disappeared as well. But that was eighteen years ago, before I moved up here. Since then Utmo has lived alone in the mountains, no TV, no radio, doesn’t even read the papers.’

‘How did they disappear?’

‘You tell me. There are lots of sheer drops around Utmo’s farm where you might fall. And the snow. The son’s shoe was found after an avalanche, but there was no sign of him after the snow melted that year, and it was strange to lose a shoe like that up in the snow. Some thought it was a bear. Though, as far as I know, there weren’t any bears up here eighteen years ago. And then there were those who reckoned it was Utmo.’

‘Oh? Why’s that?’

‘We-ell,’ Aslak said, dragging it out, ‘the boy had a bad scar on his chest. Folk reckoned he’d got that from his father. It was something to do with the mother, Karen.’

‘How so?’

‘They were competing for her.’

Aslak shook his head at the question in Kaja’s eyes. ‘This was before my time. And Roy Stille, who has been an officer here since the dawn of time, went to the house, but only Odd and Karen were there. And they both said the same. The boy had gone out hunting and hadn’t returned. But this was in April.’

‘Not hunting season?’

Aslak shook his head. ‘And since then no one has seen him. The following year, Karen went missing. Folk here believe it was the grief that broke her and she took a one-way ticket off a cliff.’

Kaja thought she detected a little quiver in the officer’s voice, but concluded it must have been the wine.

‘What do you believe?’ she asked.

‘I believe it’s true. The boy was caught by an avalanche. He suffocated under the snow. The snow melted and he was carried into a lake and that’s where he is. With his mother, let’s hope.’

‘Sounds nicer than the bear story, anyway.’

‘Well, it isn’t.’

Kaja looked up at Aslak. There was no laughter in his eyes now.

‘Buried alive in an avalanche,’ he said, and his gaze wandered out of the window, to the drifting snow. ‘The darkness. The loneliness. You can’t move, it holds you in its iron grip, laughs at your attempts to free yourself. The certainty that you’re going to die. The panic, the mortal fear when you can’t breathe. There’s no worse way to go.’

Kaja took a gulp of wine. She put down the glass. ‘How long were you lying there?’ she asked.

‘I thought it was three, maybe four hours,’ Aslak said. ‘When they dug me out, they said I had been trapped for fifteen minutes. Another five and I would have been dead.’

The waiter came and asked if they wanted anything else; he would call last orders in ten minutes. Kaja said no, and the waiter responded by putting the bill in front of Aslak.

‘Why does Utmo carry a gun?’ Kaja asked. ‘As far as I’m aware, it isn’t the hunting season now.’

‘He says it’s because of beasts of prey. Self-defence.’

‘Are there any here? Wolves?’

‘He never tells me exactly what kind of animal he means. By the way, there’s a rumour going round that at night the boy’s ghost walks the plains. And that if you see him, you have to be careful, because it means there’s a sheer drop or an avalanche nearby.’

Kaja finished her drink.

‘I can have drinking hours extended for a bit if you like.’

‘Thanks, Aslak, but I have to be up early tomorrow.’

‘Ooh,’ he said, laughing with his eyes and scratching his locks, ‘now that sounds like I…’ He paused.

‘What?’ Kaja said.

‘Nothing. I suppose you have a husband or boyfriend down south.’

Kaja smiled, though didn’t answer.

Aslak stared at the table, and said quietly, ‘Well, there you go: provincial policeman couldn’t take his drink and started wittering.’

‘That’s alright,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got a boyfriend. And I like you. You remind me of my brother.’

‘But?’

‘But what?’

‘Don’t forget I’m a real detective, too. I can see you’re no hermit. There is someone, isn’t there?’

Kaja laughed. Normally she would have left it at that. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was because she liked Aslak Krongli. Maybe it was because she didn’t have anyone to talk to about that sort of thing, not since Even died, and Aslak was a stranger, a long way from Oslo, someone who didn’t talk to her circle of acquaintances.

‘I’m in love,’ she heard herself say. ‘With a police officer.’ She put the glass of water to her mouth to hide a flurry of confusion. The strange thing was that it hadn’t struck her as true until she heard the words said aloud.

Aslak raised his glass to hers. ‘Skal to the lucky guy. And the lucky girl, I hope.’

Kaja shook her head. ‘There’s nothing to skal about. Not yet. Maybe ever. My God, listen to me…’

‘We don’t have anything else to do, do we? Tell me more.’

‘It’s complicated. He’s complicated. And I don’t know if he wants me. In fact, that bit is fairly straightforward.’

‘Let me guess. He’s got someone, and he can’t let go.’

Kaja sighed. ‘Perhaps. I honestly don’t know. Aslak, thank you for all your help, but I-’

‘-have to go to bed now.’ The police officer rose. ‘I hope it all goes sour with your friend, you want to escape from your broken heart and the city and that you could envisage giving this a chance.’ He passed her an A4 piece of paper with a Hol Police Station letterhead.

Kaja read it and laughed out loud. ‘A post in the sticks?’

‘Roy Stille is retiring in the autumn and good officers are hard to find,’ Aslak said. ‘It’s our advertisement for the post. We put it out last week. Our office is in Geilo city centre. Time off every alternate weekend and free dentistry.’

As Kaja went to bed she could hear the distant rumbles. Thunder and snow rarely came as a joint package.

She rang Harry and got his voicemail. Left a little ghost story about the local guide Odd Utmo with the rotten teeth and brace, and about his son who had to be even uglier since he had been haunting the district for eighteen years. She laughed. Realised she was drunk. Said goodnight.

She dreamed about avalanches.

It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Harry and Joe had left Goma at seven, crossed the border to Rwanda without any problems and Harry was standing in an office on the first floor of the terminal building at Kigali Airport. Two uniformed officers were giving him the once-over. Not in an unfriendly way, but to check that he really was who he claimed to be: a Norwegian policeman. Harry put his ID card back in his jacket pocket and felt the smooth paper of the coffee-brown envelope he had there. The problem was that there were two of them. How do you bribe two public servants at once? Ask them to share the contents of the envelope and politely request them not to snitch on one another?