A truck slows down, flashes its headlights a little way off and Matteo runs over. The driver is so shocked that the boy is only fourteen and alone out here that he makes a long detour out of his way to take the boy where he wants to go out of the goodness of his heart. He drives him almost all the way to Beartown. He never knows what he has been the cause of.

  Matteo gets home just before the start of the game. He fetches his sister’s diary and cycles through the town. He stops at the Andersson family’s house. He stands there for a long time, spending ages thinking about leaving the diary in their letterbox. He knows what happened to Maya, he knows her mom’s a lawyer, maybe they could tell Ruth’s story. She would get some sort of justice. But Matteo doesn’t dare, he’s too scared that someone will find the diary too soon and figure out what he’s about to do and try to stop him.

  Besides, he realizes in despair, he can’t do that to his mother. Once she’s lost both her children she’s going to need to create some extreme fantasies just to survive. He can’t deny her that by forcing her to know what really happened.

  So he finds an unlocked shed in a yard farther along the street, steals a hacksaw, and cycles down to the lake. There he makes a hole in the ice and drops the diary through it. When he gets back to the built-up part of town he leaves his bicycle and just follows the stream of people, walking toward the ice rink with thousands of others, just one of the crowd. Invisible.

  * * *

  Saturday morning, the first game day of the season. The towns have waited so long and the forest seems oddly upbeat. There’s no violence in the air, no one’s shoulders are raised, because after the torch-lit processions there’s peace once more. It may be a fragile peace, but it’s still a brief pause for everyone. Today we’re all on the same side, somehow. Today is just about hockey.

  Amat sets out from home with his bag over his shoulder. His mother kisses him on his head. He crosses the parking lot and starts walking from the Hollow to the ice rink in town, like he’s done a million times before. How many steps in total? How many miles? Will he be able to measure the distance to a dream when he eventually reaches it?

  He hears the voice calling his name, but is so surprised that at first he can’t place it. He spins around and the weight of his bag almost pulls him over.

  “Hello? What are you doing here?” he blurts out to Peter.

  Peter is standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing off toward the horizon.

  “Waiting for you. Have you got time to look at something?”

  “Now? I need to get to the game…”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But I can give you a lift? It won’t take long! We’ll still be in time!”

  Something about the bright, unadorned enthusiasm on his face makes Amat curious. The former general manager leads him away from the apartment blocks, toward the forest at the edge of the old quarry, and doesn’t stop until they reach a large, open space where there was once talk of building a supermarket. Then they said it might be a medical center. At one point someone even dreamed of a small business center. None of it ever came to be, of course, because this isn’t the part of Beartown where things get built. The town may be getting bigger, but nothing grows in the Hollow.

  “There!” Peter says, pointing at absolutely nothing.

  “I… I don’t understand…,” Amat says, seeing nothing but snow and gravel.

  Peter sees something else. He sees redemption.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about how hard it was for you to make it all the way to the A-team, Amat. Almost impossible. You should never have managed it, but you’re… unique. The motor inside you, your heart, I’ve never seen anything like it. I just don’t want every kid who comes after you to have to be like you to have a chance. I want the next kid from the Hollow to have things… a bit easier. Just a bit easier.”

  “What does that have to do with gravel?” Amat asks, touched but confused.

  Peter smiles.

  “I want to build an ice rink there. Not a big one, just somewhere to train, a place to… hang out. Somewhere we can have a skating school, a kids’ team, somewhere people can do extra training if they want to. The council’s going to build a fancy modern training facility over by the ice rink, but I think we can build something here as well. Much smaller, of course, just a classic… ice box. But I’ll make sure all the paperwork is correct this time. I’ll ask all my friends for help. I reckon you have a lot of a friends as well. Plenty of workmen live in these blocks, don’t they? I know a few as well. I think they’ll come if we ask them. I think we can get this done, you and me and a few others. I don’t know, maybe one day the Hollow can have its own team? Maybe we can dream? Is that stupid? Does it sound… ridiculous?”

  Amat’s chest rises and falls at least twenty times before he takes his phone out and aims it at the gravel.

  “No. It doesn’t sound ridiculous.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking a picture. So I can show all the spoiled, snotty-nosed kids in my ’hood where I come from when they have their own ice rink here in a few years and are taking it all for granted…”

  Amat looks so tall, suddenly, as if he’s grown taller than Peter overnight. Peter laughs. Everything is only a dream so far. He doesn’t know if he dares actually believe he can get this done. But Beartown is a special place. What a fucking town. There are so many places and things here that have strange names whose origins everyone has forgotten.

  In a few years hardly anyone will remember why the ice rink beyond the apartment blocks and gravel pit in the poorest part of town is always called “the Cathedral.” But the man who dreamed it up knows, and the boy who one day scores his first goal in the NHL knows. He’ll be interviewed on television afterward:

  “Do you want to say something to everyone watching in your hometown? How do you pronounce it? You’re from Beartown, aren’t you?” the reporter on the other side of the Atlantic will ask.

  Amat will look directly into the camera and say: “No. I’m from the Hollow.”

  102 Best friends

  Kira and Maya’s office picnic is wonderful, full of stupid jokes and uncomplicated laughter, until it is suddenly interrupted by the sound of something shattering on the floor down by the entrance, followed by someone swearing loud enough for it to echo through the building. They leap up and rush in that direction, Kira’s colleague has stumbled in through the door and is now standing in an expanding red puddle, muttering:

  “That was my BEST wine! Why are the doorsills so tricky here?”

  Kira’s voice is a mixture of concern and confusion:

  “What are you doing here? We’re not supposed to be working today, are we?”

  Her colleague proudly holds up her bag containing three bottles of wine that are still intact.

  “I’m not going to work. I usually come here to get a bit of me-time.”

  “Don’t you live… alone?” Maya wonders tentatively.

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t have me-time!” the colleague declares.

  Maya laughs.

  “Can I have some wine, then?”

  She can. Kira doesn’t get any because she’s driving, serves her right, says her colleague. When she and Maya have finished the bottle Kira asks them quietly:

  “Can I ask something? I’ve been… thinking.”

  They look at her with half-a-bottle eyes and say:

  “Hmm?”

  Kira speaks slowly, as if the words are trying to slip their leash:

  “I was talking to a young girl. A couple of years younger than you, Maya. Her name is Tess. She wants to study law, her mother asked if she could come and work here with us once she’s finished. I said of course she could, but of course that’s a lie. Because Tess wants to help women who have been assaulted and raped. She wants to defend them when no one else will help. She wants to fight for… for…”

  Maya reaches out and touches her arm and completes the sentence:

  “For the next girl like me.”

  Kira nods, looking down at her daughter’s hand.

  “And that isn’t what we do here. Not anymore. We work for money now. For big business and entrepreneurs. I… don’t want to do that anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?” her colleague exclaims, suddenly horrified.

  Kira looks her in the eye.

  “I love you. I don’t know how I’d ever be able to come to work every day without you. But I need to do something… different. You can have the business, I’ll sign my share over to you, Tails has just given us all the legal work concerning the construction of Beartown Business Park… that’s… you won’t have any financial problems. I promise.”

  “So what are YOU going to do?” her colleague wonders, aghast.

  Kira blurts everything out:

  “Set up a smaller law firm. Where people like Tess can come and work, to fight for the next Maya. So that everyone doesn’t act as if Maya was… the last one. So that all those old men can’t act as if they’ve fixed everything, throwing together a new ‘declaration of values,’ a few molestation accusations, and PR brochures and fancy statements in the press, as if that was enough? I want girls like Tess to come here and fight so that the old guys never forget that this job is ongoing. It doesn’t end. I want someone to stand here and yell: ‘What justice? Whose justice?’ when they declare that ‘justice must run its course’ in order to protect their sons. I want someone to shout: ‘How far? HOW far can this go?’ when they say ‘We need to protect boys too, this mustn’t go too far the other way either.’ I don’t want them to… damn… someone has to stand here and remind them that girls aren’t the problem! That this isn’t the last time! Kevin wasn’t the last man!”

  Maya and her mom’s colleague just nod, and Kira can’t for the life of her understand why they don’t look surprised.

  “Okay. I’m with you,” her colleague says curtly.

  Kira shakes her head in frustration.

  “No, no, you don’t understand. I won’t make any money. You can have the whole company, the contracts for Beartown Business Park will mean…”

  Her colleague looks happily bemused.

  “What am I supposed to do? Stay here and get rich? I don’t even like expensive wine. I’m going with you. Wherever you go.”

  Maya sits there and watches the two middle-aged women hug, and thinks that when she gets old, really, really, really old, she hopes she’s just as crazy as they are. Kira starts drinking wine without thinking about the consequences, until in the end Maya has to call Ana to get her to come and pick up all three of them. Ana comes at once, without asking any questions. None of the four women likes hockey but they decide to go and watch a hockey game anyway.

  Kira locks the office. In a few months’ time she will surrender those keys and hand the whole business over to some of the employees, and she will sell her expensive car. The new law firm’s first office will be her kitchen. One day women throughout the country will know who they are. That too is a sort of cathedral.

  * * *

  In Hed Johnny is cleaning the van. He can never figure out who makes more mess inside it, the kids or Hannah. Every morning with them is like waking up in a garbage dump after a tornado. But Hannah comes out and pinches his backside when he’s leaning over with the little vacuum cleaner and whispers in his ear:

  “Be careful today. Don’t get into any trouble and don’t get hurt, because when you get home and the kids are asleep, I’m going to have sex with you, and the only person who gets to hurt you is your wife! Do you hear?”

  He laughs. She’s a crazily beautiful woman. A beautiful, crazy woman. She dances off teasingly into the house to get the children ready, they are going to watch the game with him, Hannah has to go and work at the hospital. When Tess walks out of the house her mother stops her and hands her Kira Andersson’s business card:

  “You… dropped this. It fell out of your jacket.”

  Tess smiles, forgiving her mother for the lie.

  “Hmm, ‘fell out.’ ”

  Hannah breathes through clenched teeth.

  “It’s… it’s hard for me to admit that you look up to other women rather than me now. It’s… really damn hard. But Kira said you can come by her office. One day maybe you could work there. I…”

  She doesn’t get any further, because it’s hard to talk when you’re being hugged so tightly you’re suffocating.

  * * *

  Adri drives through the forest and stops on the slope above the campervan. She has Alicia with her, the girl rushes down through the trees and throws herself into Benji’s arms.

  “Hi best friend,” Benji whispers.

  “Hi best friend,” she giggles back.

  They go to the game together. Big City gets a lift, but almost regrets it when Alicia asks half a million questions before they’ve even left the forest tracks. “Are you good? How good? How hard do you shoot? Are you quicker than a cat? A normal cat, I mean, not a superhero cat, just an ordinary cat! How quick are you? Benji, how quick is a cat? Can we train together one day? Today, maybe? How old are you? Fifty? Benji, is Hed any good? Are we going to beat them? By how much? What do you mean, ‘don’t know,’ just say a GUESS!!!” It never stops. Big City has a headache by the time they arrive. Benji laughs and says to Alicia:

  “Do you want to come into the locker room and say hello to Amat and the others?”

  Alicia stares at him with her mouth open, as if he’s just asked if she wants to go and say hello to Spider-Man and Wonder Woman. Benji holds her hand as they walk into the ice rink. She’s cocky at first, but the stands are already full of people and the noise sounds like a roar to her young ears, and just outside the A-team’s locker room Alicia’s nerves get the better of her and she whispers:

  “No let’s not I don’t want to it doesn’t matter!”

  Benji holds her hand a little tighter. And says calmly:

  “Look up at the roof. Only you and me on the planet. We’re alone. No one’s going to hurt us.”

  They stand there until she can’t hear the crowd anymore. Everything is quiet. There’s nothing to be scared of. She’s still holding Benji’s hand when they go into the locker room, tightly, as if it’s the last time.

  * * *

  Zackell is sitting in her office making the last preparations before the game. There’s a soft tap on the door, Big City is standing there and she looks up:

  “Yes?”

  He fumbles for words.

  “I just wanted to say… thank you. Thank you for believing in me and giving me a chance out here, I… well, I guess I never thought I’d be happy in a place like this. But it already almost feels more like home than… home.”

  “Yes?” Zackell repeats, with her usual perfect ear for expressions of emotion.

  Big City clears his throat.

  “Is there any particular way you want me to play this evening? In terms of tactics?”

  She seems to think for a while. Then she says:

  “Surprise me.”

  She will never tell him, because she doesn’t do that sort of thing, but there will be few players over the years who give her as much joy as him. Few players who do the unexpected so often. Who are so different.

  Big City goes to the locker room. Everything is still unfamiliar so far, but he will stay in this town for many years. He will buy a small house not far from where Benji’s campervan is now, and he will spend a lot of time sitting in a boat catching zero fish. He will learn to tell lies properly, but never about himself anymore. His mother will eventually move up here. Well, maybe not move, but she will come to visit and never go home. She’s forest folk too, it turns out. You don’t always know that until you have a forest to be folk in.

  * * *

  Bobo is standing in the corridor outside the locker room. Tess gives him a quick kiss before she leaves him to get on with his job. She will move and study in a town far away, but she will come back when she’s finished and work with Kira. Hannah is right, she’s going to be the best. Bobo will run the car-repair workshop with his dad. He carries on as Zackell’s assistant coach for a few more years, but when he and Tess get married and have their first child Bobo stops coaching the A-team and starts coaching the little kids’ team instead, because they train earlier and he can always be home in time to have dinner ready for his wife when she gets home from work. One day he will coach his own kids, all of them.

  * * *

  In the stands Hog takes his seat, as proud as anything. He’s sitting on the Beartown side of the rink, but a man from Hed still makes his way over there. Johnny holds out his big hand, Hog shakes it after a moment’s hesitation.

  “He’s a good lad, your Bobo,” Johnny says.

  Hog nods, initially surprised, then grateful.

  “He still doesn’t deserve Tess.”

  Johnny grins weakly.

  “No. He doesn’t. But none of us deserve our women.”

  Hog moves over, the two men are both so big that three seats are barely enough for them. Half a lifetime ago they did their best to kill each other out on the ice but now they’re going to be family and have to become friends somehow. It can be useful to have a bit of help with things like that. Fortunately Ana and Maya are sitting a couple of seats away, so Hog leans toward them and asks if Ana has any beer. She does. Obviously you aren’t allowed to bring beer into the ice rink, but if Ana wasn’t allowed to do things she shouldn’t, she’d never leave the house. She’d never be allowed to be in her own house either, come to think of that. Hog and Johnny drink surreptitiously from paper cups, not because Johnny is afraid of security but because he’s afraid of Hannah.

  “You’ll all have to come around for a family meal,” he declares through clenched teeth.

  “Bobo would like that,” Hog replies curtly.

  “I hope so, because he’ll be doing the cooking,” Johnny grins.