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was their river, Beaver Beck, it was called even though it was much bigger than a beck. There had been beavers in it before, there weren’t any now. Only the old people in the district could remember seeing beavers. It was bad, the old people said, you should have been here, we saw beavers felling birches as tall as tower blocks in the city, and they just ate a few shoots from the crown and then they started gnawing at a new one, and the trees were left to rot. It was a sorry sight, a great shame, the old people said, so much firewood down the drain, it’s good they’re gone, those damn beavers, I’ve shot a few myself, one old-timer said. But Jim and Tommy would have liked to see at least one beaver fell a tree, it would have been interesting to find out how long it took, and then they came in to Mørk from the south and not from their usual side, and turned into the BP station and parked their bikes between the pumps and went into the kiosk with the money they had in their pockets to buy a Krone ice cream. It was June and hot, and Tommy’s father had been swept off the face of the earth. No one had seen him since the day after Whit, and no one understood how he could have left with that leg of his, and without anyone seeing him. When the four children returned to the house the day after, he was gone, and everything was as they had left it, the toppled tables and chairs in the living room, a vase was on the floor cracked into sky blue pieces, pictures hanging crookedly on the walls, and the glass in one of them smashed. The rounders bat still on the floor. Everyone knew about Tommy and the bat. Everyone knew about his father’s leg.
    How’s the face, the man behind the counter said, does it still hurt. No, it’s fine, Tommy said. It wasn’t of course, it still hurt, but the man said, have this too, and as well as the ice cream, he gave Tommy a free bar of Kvikk Lunsj chocolate. Eat it now, the man, said, and to hell with dinner, it won’t hurt you this one time. Thanks, Tommy said, but maybe I’ll keep it for tonight, it’s crime-time on TV. That’s fine, too, the man said, his name was Lysbu, you’ll manage, he said. It will soon be sorted out and then you’ll be free of it all. You can eat with us, Jim said, we’re having perch, I caught it myself. Right, Tommy said, what will your mother say about me coming. She’s a Christian, Jim said, she can’t say no. That would have been great, but I can’t. Siri and I have to cook for the twins, we’ll be fine, I found a little money, we’ve been shopping, so we have food. You’ll soon be free of all this, Lysbu said. It makes no difference to me, Tommy said, we’ll manage. Thanks for the chocolate, that was decent of you, he said, and in fact he would rather have said no, thank you, he didn’t want anything from anybody, but Lysbu wasn’t like most grown-ups, he actually listened to what you were saying.
    When they were out by the pumps, Tommy took off the chocolate wrapper and split the bar into two equal parts, two fingers each with biscuit inside the chocolate and passed Jim one half, but Jim said, you can all have a finger each tonight at crime-time like you just said, there are four of you, right. Tommy looked at Jim, he looked down at the chocolate. It was soft to the touch. He smiled. It’s going to melt anyway, he said. Let’s eat it now. And Jim took his bit willingly, and then they ate the chocolate, and behind them Lysbu stood by the counter watching them through the window as they got on their bikes, the left hand holding the ice cream and the right hand on the handlebars, and turning out between the petrol pumps. He shook his head. It will all be sorted out, he said aloud. It has to be.
    Then he went into the workshop. There was Jonsen’s Opel Kapitän, the paintwork gleaming, not a scrap of rust, but Jonsen couldn’t fix anything on the car himself, he couldn’t tighten a nut, couldn’t change a spark plug, he could fix just about