“Yes, yes, but you misunderstand, you don’t have to pay anything, it just looks good if you’re on the list. You know, that you personally are there…”

  So this is the reason, Kira finally realizes. Tails never needed a lawyer, he just needed a saint to wash the brand clean. Kira is the wife of the former general manager, but above all she’s the mother of the daughter who was raped by the hockey star. If she can sponsor the club, if she can sit on the committee, then how could the journalists accuse the club of being unethical?

  “Is this how you see me and my family? As something you can exploit?” she asks, more hurt than she wanted to admit.

  Tails is flushed with guilt.

  “Your business is respected, a big legal firm, and that attracts other sponsors. And you don’t even have to pay anything, just…”

  “So you’re building a pyramid scheme?”

  “No… no, surely you’re going too far now? I wouldn’t call it…”

  She shakes the papers in his face.

  “That’s EXACTLY what it is! You bring in ‘sponsors’ with a lot of credibility but who don’t pay anything, merely to attract other sponsors who have to pay the full amount. And now you want me on the committee as a figurehead so everyone will think you’ve sorted everything out, because now you’re a politically correct club with ‘values’ and ‘equality’!”

  Tails is huddled up on the other side of the table, his fingers scrape unhappily against the porcelain edge of the coffee cup. Then he whispers ominously:

  “No. No, it isn’t like that. At least, not only like that. I… I need your help as a lawyer as well. Not only me, but… Peter.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kira snarls.

  That’s when Tails pulls the last file out of his bag and puts it on the table.

  “Here. We’re going to build a training facility. Beartown Hockey, together with the council. It’s part of the plans for Beartown Business Park. But we had problems with the financing, so we sold it…”

  “What do you mean, sold it? You haven’t even built it?”

  “No, that’s the point. The council has, so to speak, bought it from the hockey club… in advance…”

  Kira looks through the documents, at first frustrated, then increasingly horrified. She follows every thread of the tangled mess: the council sells the land to the factory, who sell it much cheaper to the hockey club, who then sell it back to the council for millions, only now it’s suddenly called a “training facility.” At the same time the factory is allowed to buy another patch of land that it has wanted for a long time from the council, without any questions. Favors and counter-favors.

  “This is… I don’t even know what to say… I might have been able to save you from everything else you’ve shown me, but this? Someone’s going to end up in prison for this,” she manages to say.

  Tails smiles stiffly, then gears up as if he’s straightening his back and makes one last attempt to be optimistic:

  “Yes, but listen to me, Kira: it’s only illegal if it gets uncovered now! Because we are going to build the training facility, soon! Do you remember Alicia in the video I showed you? You know she hasn’t been able to train since the storm because we’ve got so many teams in the rink that there’s no room for the youngest teams. So we just need a bit of time! Just hide this from the journalists for a little while! Once the training facility is built, and once Hed Hockey has been closed down and there’s only Beartown Hockey left, then no one’s going to care about how it happened!”

  Most of all, Kira hates him because she knows he’s right. But her eyes roam over the documents until they reach the bottom of the page and her heart stops.

  “Hang on, why… Peter… why has Peter signed this?” she splutters.

  Tails’s smile is so strained now that he has to tug at his collar to breathe.

  “He was general manager, so…”

  Kira’s fists clench so quickly and slam down so hard onto the table that he jumps.

  “Not when THIS was signed, you bastard! He’d already left by then! What the hell have you DONE?!”

  It isn’t just sweat running down Tails’s cheeks now. He blinks hard.

  “Peter signed it because I asked him to. It… it needed someone like him. The board of the construction company and that official at the council and the owners of the factory, they all got cold feet when we were preparing to sell the training facility, so they demanded that someone they trusted sign it. And everyone trusts Peter. He’d already started working for you then, but we hadn’t appointed another general manager, and I… I knew he felt guilty… he felt he’d left the club in the lurch. You know what he’s like. He wants to save the whole world.”

  Kira’s cheeks are throbbing.

  “So you asked him to sign something you knew was illegal and he was so stupid that he did it?”

  Tails looks down at his lap.

  “He signed it because I asked him to. Because he trusted me.”

  “So you used him!”

  “Please, Kira, I was just trying to do what was best for the town. But if this goes wrong the whole club…”

  She leans across the table so far that he almost topples off his chair.

  “The club? I don’t give a damn about the CLUB! Don’t you realize that PETER COULD END UP IN PRISON?”

  “I…” is all Tails manages to say before she grabs hold of his shirt collar, making the seams creak.

  “If my husband ends up in prison because of you, I’ll end up in prison for murder, you need to be very clear about that!” she hisses.

  Then she lets go of his collar and marches out into the hall without waiting for a reply. Shortly after that the front door slams and the house falls silent. Tails doesn’t know what to do, so he makes more coffee and waits.

  64 Knocks

  On Monday Amat spends hours running through the forest on his own. When he gets back to the yard between the apartment blocks early that afternoon the first of the children have gotten back from school, they’re already out playing with sticks and tennis balls, just like yesterday. Amat shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and pulls his hood over his head out of habit, to stop them from recognizing him and calling his name. He goes home and closes the door and his hands automatically feel for a bottle in his bag before he realizes something very strange: he doesn’t feel anxious. Or at least, not as much as normal. His chest has felt so weighed down for so long that he’s almost forgotten how it feels, whatever this is—“calm,” perhaps? The moment feels like a broken bone that has been incredibly painful for months, then one morning hurts very slightly less. His breathing feels a little easier. The window is closed but he can still hear the shouting and laughter from down in the yard. It doesn’t annoy him the way it usually does. Instead it drowns out some of the voices in his head, extinguishes some of the doubts, instills a little hope. Just a tiny bit. There’s no happiness as infectious as the joy of playing hockey.

  “Can I join in?” he asks as he emerges from the door with an old stick in his hand.

  “With… us?” the children stammer.

  He nods.

  “Sure. Come on. Me and you two against the rest.”

  The children cheer so loudly that it echoes across the whole of the Hollow, their sticks clatter against the pavement under the thin covering of snow, someone shouts “cheat!,” someone else yells “YES!,” and palms slap until someone’s mother calls from a balcony that it’s time to come in and eat. Then one of the children turns to Amat and cries:

  “Can we play again tomorrow?”

  Amat pulls his hood up, sticks his hands in his pockets, and smiles weakly:

  “I hope I won’t have time.”

  They don’t understand what he means, they just run home with all their dreams and Amat stands there and lets his old dreams out from deep down inside him.

  Then he laces his sneakers extra tight and runs through the town, and doesn’t stop until he reaches Zackell’s door.

  * * *

  Bang bang bang.

  * * *

  He knocks on the door in time with his heartbeat. But there’s no answer. He walks around the house, but there are no lights on and everything is quiet. He runs down to the ice rink but her car isn’t in the parking lot. He stands there, out of breath, his thoughts swimming against the current, a hundred voices in his head screaming “give up!” but he doesn’t listen this time. Instead he turns and runs in the other direction, home to the only person he can imagine confessing everything to, the only person he can ask for advice now. The only person apart from his mother who has always believed in his potential no matter what he’s done.

  * * *

  Maya heads home just after lunchtime. Ana is with her because there’s no food at her place and she’s heard that Maya’s dad has started baking bread. Ana loves bread. As they pass the running track on the Heights her friend nods and exclaims:

  “Isn’t that your mom?”

  Maya bursts out laughing.

  “MY mom? Are you kidding? She wouldn’t bother to run if a volcano erupted!”

  But she peers through the trees and it really does look like her mother. Maya rubs her eyes, but the figure has already disappeared. She and Ana carry on walking home, the front door is unlocked, none of the family are home but Tails is sitting on his own in the kitchen drinking coffee.

  “Hello!” he says cheerfully.

  Maya just nods in resignation and gathers together bread and toppings from the fridge. Ana whispers:

  “What… what’s Tails doing here if there’s no one else around?”

  Maya sighs with all the depth of a collection of epic poetry.

  “I’ve decided to stop asking questions about what happens in this house. It just gives you a migraine if you try to understand.”

  * * *

  Amat clenches his fist, raises it, gets ready.

  * * *

  Bang bang bang.

  * * *

  Knocks. Heartbeats. Steps inside the house, the door opening, Amat gets ready to confess immediately: “Sorry, Peter, forgive me! I messed up! Help me!” A whole childhood flickers past inside him: the first time he put skates on, his first goal, the first defeat, and always Peter’s voice somewhere on the ice or in the stands. A gentle hand on his shoulder, a quick “it’ll be okay” or “well done.” That’s what he needs now. He’s been practicing the whole way here.

  But as the door handle is pushed down his mouth seizes up, because it isn’t Peter who opens the door but Maya.

  “Hi Amat!” she exclaims in a mixture of happiness and surprise.

  “Hi… sorry…,” he mutters in a mixture of confusion and desolation.

  “It’s been ages! How are you?” she chirrups.

  “What?” he mumbles distractedly.

  He feels ashamed of how shabby and forlorn he must look as she stands there in the doorway looking perfect, as usual.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, a little concerned.

  He nods slowly several times, repeats the movement more quickly to convince himself, tries to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth. He pulls himself together again in order to take his whole life back:

  “Is… is your dad home?”

  Maya shakes her head.

  “No, he’s gone off somewhere with Zackell. They’re going to look at a new player, I think!”

  Amat just stares at her. His ears are ringing, his temples are throbbing, his heart is beating with giddiness. “A new player.” They’ve already replaced him. He falls straight into the abyss of missed opportunities that only eighteen-year-olds can contain.

  “Oh… okay. It… don’t worry… it wasn’t anything much,” he whispers with a sob in his throat.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want to come in?” Maya asks.

  But Amat has already turned and started to walk home.

  65 Big city types

  Aleksandr stops his new Jeep at a gas station. As he walks over to the bathroom Peter turns to Zackell in the backseat.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Can I stop you?”

  He sighs.

  “Have you spoken to Amat?”

  She looks surprised.

  “Since when?”

  “Since… the summer. When he didn’t get drafted.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  She shakes her head at the foolishness of the idea.

  “He hasn’t come to training. How am I supposed to talk to him then?”

  “Call him, maybe?”

  “Call him? What for?”

  “To find out if he’s thinking of playing.”

  “If he wants to play, he’d come to training, wouldn’t he?”

  Peter’s neck creaks with frustration.

  “So instead of ASKING Amat, you dragged me all the way here to recruit Aleksandr to replace him?”

  Then Zackell tilts her head to one side and really tries her best not to call Peter “a total idiot.”

  “You’re a bit of an idiot. Aleksandr isn’t going to replace Amat.”

  “So what is he going to do, then?”

  “He’s going to annoy Amat.”

  Then Zackell lies down on the backseat and falls asleep, and sleeps so deeply all the way to Beartown that Peter can’t help wondering if the real reason she gave her car away was so she didn’t have to drive home.

  Peter and Aleksandr talk hockey all the way. Nothing but hockey. The Jeep rolls into Beartown late that evening. The twenty-year-old was called by one name as a child, chose a different name as a teenager, but in this town he will acquire a third name. Rather unexpectedly, it’s actually Peter who comes up with it when Aleksandr suddenly asks:

  “Is this place the way you think it is? Typical rural small town?”

  “What’s a typical rural small town?” Peter wonders.

  “You know, the sort where people just hate everything. Hate wolves, hate the authorities, hate outsiders…”

  Peter realizes then just how incredibly much he really is from here, because he actually takes offense at that, but instead of snapping back he smiles:

  “Hmm. You know what people around here hate most of all?”

  “No?”

  “Cocky bastards from the big city.”

  The occasions when anyone has ever heard Elisabeth Zackell laugh out loud are easily counted, but this is one of them. After that, no one in Beartown calls Aleksandr anything other than “Big City.” Funnily enough, he learns not to be too upset by that.

  Zackell jumps out of the Jeep outside her house with a curt:

  “Training tomorrow, Big City! Be there on time!”

  The twenty-year-old stays in his seat but Peter gets out and walks after her. She looks surprised. Peter looks rather surprised too, as if his feet are moving quicker than his brain.

  “Listen… Elisabeth… I just want to say thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “For taking me with you today. It meant a lot to… well, feel like part of the club again.”

  “In my defense, I didn’t actually know that you’d left the club,” Zackell points out, and Peter bursts out laughing.

  “No, no, of course. But thanks anyway. It’s been a fun day. And you were wrong, by the way!”

  “About what?”

  “About the team with the best players always winning. That isn’t enough. They need someone who understands them too. Someone who can see the best in them.”

  He kicks the snow. She puts her house key in the lock. He’s on his way back to the car, and she doesn’t even turn around when she says:

  “Ramona hardly liked anyone, but she liked you, Peter. I hardly like anyone either.”

  She’s already closed the door behind her when the meaning of those words sinks in to him. It isn’t until he’s sitting in the Jeep again and Big City asks where he should drive that it occurs to Peter that Zackell might not have given any thought to where the player was going to live.

  He needn’t have worried about that. Of course Zackell had a plan. Obviously Big City is going to stay with Peter.

  * * *

  Kira comes home with a decision. When Tails leaves the Andersson family’s house she and he have agreed on two things: Tails should start making phone calls, and Kira will do something terrible. So she goes into her daughter’s bedroom, sits down on her bed, and looks at Maya and Ana very seriously.

  “I need you both to do something for me.”

  “What?” the girls ask.

  “You mustn’t tell anyone that Tails was here today. Not even… your dad. I need to tell him myself…”

  The atmosphere in the room becomes oppressive, to put it mildly. Maya sits in silence for so long that Ana eventually sees it as her duty to say what they’re both thinking out loud:

  “Sorry Kira, but I have to say, if you’re going to have an affair, I think you could do a lot better than Tails. You’re pretty damn hot! There are probably loads of men who…”

  At first Kira doesn’t understand, then she understands everything all at once, upon which she stares at Ana with such horror and disgust that Maya laughs more than she can remember having laughed in that house since her little brother was six and managed to shut himself in the fridge.

  * * *

  Peter gets home and stands in the hall. Kira comes out of the kitchen. She’ll ask herself many times why she doesn’t just tell him the truth there and then, that Tails has been there and that she knows all about the contracts and the training facility, but Peter has a look on his face that she hasn’t realized how much she’s missed. He looks excited. It’s irresistible.

  “Darling! Zackell and I have recruited a player! Well, I mean… Zackell recruited him, but I… we both helped! He’s special! Special in a good way, I mean! He could be… incredible!”

  Kira can hardly believe the noise that comes out of her throat then, but she laughs. Of all the things she could have done. She laughs and laughs and laughs, because he looks so childishly happy and she’d forgotten that it was this boy she fell in love with. So she says nothing about anything that’s happened today, she just thinks that she needs to protect her husband, she needs to make sure he doesn’t end up in prison because she can’t breathe without him.