“And he’s . . . the right sort of guy?”

Peter nods hard, because he knows what that means. Drafting one player instead of another is an immense financial investment for an NHL team. They take absolutely everything into account. It’s no longer enough just to be good on the ice; they don’t want any unpleasant surprises from the player’s private life either. Peter knows it shouldn’t be like that, but those are the rules of the game these days. A few years ago he heard about a hugely talented youngster who slid down the draft because the scouts found out his dad was an alcoholic with a criminal record. That was enough to scare them off, because they had no way of knowing how the teenager would behave if he became a hockey millionaire overnight. So Peter tells the truth, a truth he knows Brian wants to hear: “Kevin is the right sort of guy. He gets top grades in school. He comes from a stable family, well brought up. There are definitely no ‘off ice’ problems.”

Brian murmurs happily at the other end.

“Good, good. And he wears the same number you used to wear, right? Number nine?”

“Yes.”

“I thought they’d have retired that number and hung it from the rafters.”

Peter grins.

“They will. Only it’ll have Kevin’s name on it when they do.”

Brian laughs loudly. They hang up with a promise to be in touch again soon, that Peter will go over to Canada with his family, that the children will get to see each other again. They both know it will never happen.

*

Amat is gathering up the pucks and cones after practice. Not because anyone’s told him to, but because it comes naturally to him and because it gives him a chance to avoid the others. He’s expecting the locker room to be empty when he gets there, but is met by Bobo and Kevin. The two seventeen-year-olds are picking scraps of tape from the floor and throwing them in the garbage.

Amat stands in the doorway and is amazed at how easy it is, the bit that comes next. Kevin says it as if it were the most natural thing in the world: “Lyt has borrowed his dad’s car. Let’s go to Hed and catch a film!”

Bobo slaps Amat happily on the back.

“Didn’t I say? You’re one of us now!”

Twenty minutes later they’re sitting in the car. Amat realizes he’s sitting in Benji’s place, but doesn’t ask. Lyt is boasting about a blowjob again. Kevin asks Bobo to “tell some jokes” and Bobo is so excited to be asked that he snorts Coke out of his nose all over the car seat, infuriating Lyt. They roar with laughter. Talk about the final, about the long bus trip to the city where it’s going to be taking place, about girls and parties, and how things are going to be when they’re all playing in the A-team. Amat slides into the conversation, at first reluctantly, then with a wonderful warm feeling of being allowed to belong to something. Because that’s much easier.

Even in Hed people recognize them, and they get slaps on the back and congratulations. After the movie, when Amat thinks they’re on the way home, Lyt turns off the main road just after the Beartown sign. He stops by the lake. Amat doesn’t understand why until Kevin opens the trunk of the car. They’ve got beer, lights, skates, and hockey sticks in the back. They put their woollen hats down to mark the goals.

They play hockey on the lake that night, four boys, and everything feels simple. As if they were children. Amat is amazed at how straightforward it is. Staying silent in return for being allowed to join in.

*

Peter throws his rubber ball at the wall again. Tries not to look at the resignation forms on the desk, tries not to think about Sune as a person and only as a coach. He knows that’s what Sune would want. Club first.

The board and sponsors can be assholes. Peter knows that better than anyone, but they only want the same as him and Sune: success for the club. Success demands that we see beyond ourselves. Sometimes Peter has had to keep his mouth shut when the board has demanded new recruitments that he knows are stupid, and then he has had to keep his mouth shut all over again when it turns out he was right. Sometimes he has been instructed only to sign seven-month contracts with players, so that the club won’t have to pay their wages during the summer. The players in turn sign on as unemployed for the rest of the year and are given public assistance, and every so often Tails provides fake certificates declaring that they’ve done “work placement” in his supermarket when they were actually training with the team all summer. Then, when the season starts again, they sign new seven-month contracts. Sometimes you have to skirt around a few moral issues in order to survive financially as a small club. Peter has had to accept that as part of the job. Kira once told him that the club had an unpleasant culture of silence, the sort of thing you find among soldiers and criminals. But sometimes that’s what it takes, a culture of silence to foster a culture of winning.

Peter has spent more time than any other coach trying to reduce the Pack’s violence in the stands, as well as their menacing hold over the town, and that’s made him a hated figure in the Bearskin, but sometimes even he has trouble working out who the worst hooligans in the Beartown Ice Hockey Club are: the ones with tattoos on their necks, or the ones with neckties.

He puts the rubber ball down. Picks up a pen from a neatly organized box in his desk drawer and writes his signature on the line where it says “Representative of the club” on the resignation form. When Sune signs immediately below, it will officially look like he has resigned of his own accord. But Peter knows what he’s done. He’s just fired his idol.

*

Lars is standing in David’s office, hesitating as long as possible before eventually clearing his throat and asking: “How do you want to punish Benji?”

David doesn’t look up from his computer screen.

“We won’t be punishing him.”

Lars’s nails tap the wood of the doorframe with pent-up frustration.

“He didn’t show up for a training session less than a week before the final. You wouldn’t tolerate that from anyone else.”

David looks up, straight at him, so abruptly that Lars jerks back.

“Do you want to win the final?”

“Of course!” Lars gasps.

“Then let this go. Because I may not be able to guarantee that we’re going to win with Benji, but I can damn well guarantee that we won’t win without him.”

Lars leaves the room without further protest. When David is alone he switches off his computer, sighs deeply, picks up a large marker pen, and goes and gets a puck. He writes three large letters on it.

Then he drives out to the cemetery.