The Rabbit Hunter

97

Half an hour later DJ is standing on the broad steps of the deck handing out guns and ammunition.

‘The rifle I’ve chosen is a Remington 700 with a synthetic butt,’ he says, holding up a blue-green rifle with a black barrel.

‘Good weapon,’ Lawrence murmurs.

‘James, I have a left-handed one for you,’ DJ adds.

‘Thanks.’

‘It weighs 2.9 kilos, so you should all be OK,’ DJ smiles, then holds up a brown box. ‘We’re using .375 Holland & Holland, and you only get twenty rounds.’

He tosses the box to Rex.

‘So aim carefully.’

They take their equipment and start to walk around to the other side of the hotel. The sky is grey and unsettled, the air smells like rain, and a gusty wind is blowing through the low bushes.

DJ leads them along a path up the slope, and explains that it’s a forty-minute hike to the gates and the feeding grounds.

‘The whole enclosure is six hundred and eighty acres, and covers wooded valleys, bare hilltops, and a few small lakes, including Kratersjön, as well as some steep mountain cliffs towards the south, so you need to watch your step.’

The landscape is brown and the air fresh and full of moisture. It smells like forest, heather and wet leaves.

‘Having fun?’ Sammy asks, with a gentle but unmistakeable note of derision.

‘It’s just work,’ Rex replies. ‘But I’m happy you’re here.’

His son gives him a sideways glance.

‘You don’t seem very happy, Dad.’

‘I’ll tell you later.’

‘What?’

Rex is about to admit that he can’t handle this, that he wants to get away as soon as possible, when DJ falls in alongside them. He shows them how to load, demonstrates the single-stage trigger and the safety catch on the side.

‘How are you doing, Sammy?’ he asks with a smile.

‘Sorry, but I don’t get the point of shooting reindeer in an enclosure... I mean, they can’t go anywhere. It’s like the Hunger Games, but without the right to self-defence.’

‘I hear what you’re saying,’ DJ says patiently. ‘But at the same time, if you compare this with the meat industry, it couldn’t be more free-range. The enclosure covers more than three million square metres.’

Rex looks at James’s and Kent’s broad backs, the rifles over their shoulders. James turns around and hands him a silver hipflask. Rex takes it and passes it on without drinking.

‘How’s Anna doing? She was looking better when we saw her at the awards ceremony,’ Kent says.

‘She has her hair back, but they don’t think she’ll make it to winter,’ James replies. ‘My wife has cancer,’ he explains to Rex.

‘Do you have children?’

‘Yes... a boy who’s twenty, studying law at Harvard... and an afterthought, Elsa, she’s nine. She just wants to be with her mum all the time, nothing else.’

They climb diagonally up a hillside, and see that the landscape curves down into a deep valley. The view is spectacular.

‘So we’re all going to put our school uniforms on tomorrow, then?’ Lawrence jokes.

‘Oh God,’ Kent sighs.

‘Christ, all that church-going, and those Sunday dinners... we’d never have survived without microwave pizzas and nips of cognac.’

‘Or Wille, calling his family’s chauffeur and getting him to drive all the way from Stockholm with a case of champagne,’ Kent chuckles, then turns suddenly sombre.

‘I can’t believe he and Teddy are both dead,’ James says quietly.