The Man from Beijing

Epilogue

Birgitta Roslin did some shopping in her usual supermarket on the way home from work that same day in August. While standing in the queue at the checkout, she took one of the evening papers from its stand and leafed through it. On one page she read in passing that a lone wolf had been shot in a village north of Gävle.

Neither she nor anybody else knew that the same wolf had crossed into Sweden from Norway through Vauldalen one day in January. It had been hungry and not had anything to eat since finding the remains of a dead moose in Österdalarna.

The wolf had continued eastward, passed Nävjarna, crossed over the frozen Ljusnan River at Kåböle, and then vanished again into the vast forests.

Now it was lying dead on a farm near Gävle.

Nobody knew that on the morning of 13 January it had come to a remote village in Hälsingland by the name of Hesjövallen.

Everything had been covered in snow then. Now summer would soon be over.

The hamlet of Hesjövallen was empty. Nobody lived there any more. In some of the gardens rowanberries were already glowing red, with nobody to admire the splendid show of colour.

Autumn was closing in on Norrland. People were beginning to prepare themselves for another long winter.