She texts back almost immediately. Sure xxx

And now I feel like a human again. Those three kisses. The ones I find awkward to write even though it’s stupid that I’m awkward and even though part of me loves receiving them. Mum never sent any. Not on a card. She never sent me a card after Dad died, or sat me down for a chat. There were no messages to end with kisses. I reply to Noora with a single x.

Lars walks in.

‘Mrs Björken from the haberdashery is livid.’

He removes his coat like a DVD on slow-motion setting. It gets tugged off his shoulders and each arm gets pulled through. He shakes the coat and straightens it then hangs it carefully on his hook.

‘Why?’ I ask.

He looks round to me, his bifocals misted from the October damp outside.

‘Why?’ he says.

Then he removes each boot and places it neatly on the shoe rack. One Velcro trainer on. Then the next. He pulls the first one off again and adjusts the strap.

‘Tooth,’ he says.

Sebastian looks confused.

‘What?’

Lars saunters over toward the kitchen and says, ‘Coffee in the pot, Seb?’

You could just check.

‘Yeah, fresh in the pot,’ says Sebastian. ‘What tooth?’

Lars stops and turns around, standing in the doorway of Nils’s office-slash-kitchen.

‘Mrs Björken went in to get a cap replaced.’ He puts his finger inside his mouth and checks on one of his own teeth and then looks surprised. ‘Sven Edlund started the procedure as per expected.’

Lars stops talking and just looks into the middle distance.

Jesus Christ, just get to the fucking point, man.

‘And…’ says Sebastian.

Lars takes a deep breath. ‘Apparently Sven Edlund left the room for a moment and when Mrs Björken looked up again it was Dr Eva Edlund wearing the face mask, holding the drill.’

‘What?’ says Sebastian.

‘Well, she is a qualified dentist,’ I say.

‘Not practicing though,’ says Lars. ‘Besides, it upset Mrs Björken, because you don’t expect a different face to appear looming over you when you’re down in the chair, do you? A strange face and a drill making that awful, squealing noise. Mrs Björken put her hand in front of her mouth and refused to cooperate with Eva Edlund.’

‘What happened?’ I say.

‘Sven came back and completed the procedure. He apologised and said he’d wanted his wife’s opinion on the tooth, and that he should have let Mrs Björken know what was going on.’

‘Doesn’t sound like a front-page story,’ says Sebastian.

‘I never suggested it was,’ says Lars. ‘But as I mentioned, Mrs Björken was quite put out. Said the look in Eva Edlund’s eyes would haunt her to the grave. Said Eva had an excited expression.’