“I want you to tidy up after us. Close doors, remove any visible traces that we were ever here. I should have done it myself, but it would be good if you could wipe up a bit inside the privy. The door, the bench, the floor, the walls—well, you’ll see what I mean. Use the gloves. But first of all, you need to drag those bags down to our bikes. Leave them in the plastic, but put them there and hide them well. You can take the branches that are covering the bikes—we don’t need to hide those any longer.”

“Respectfully, I don’t give a shit about the money,” said Jeanette.

“I know that, Jen. But it’ll come in handy very soon, and if the police find it here with us, then things won’t work out the way we planned. Believe me.”

Jeanette looked at her incredulously but shrugged her shoulders in resignation. She glanced tenderly at the boy, who was moving slightly in Kerstin’s embrace. Perhaps he was resurfacing from unconsciousness.

Kerstin extracted her mobile from her pocket, thinking to herself that she should call Sandra and tell her that they had found Erik—if the news hadn’t reached her yet. But she had no signal.

“Emergency calls only,” said Jeanette.

“It worked an hour ago,” Kerstin objected. “I received a call.”

“But now it’s emergency calls only. Same for me. You’ve got to be grateful for the little things.”

“Little things?” Kerstin said with a smile. “The only thing that matters at all, if you ask me.”

Jeanette nodded and smiled back at her, before resuming a serious expression.

“What exactly are we doing here?” she asked.

At first, Kerstin didn’t understand what she meant. She dipped her fingers in the glass of water on the table and tried to get the boy to suck at them. Jeanette had her arms crossed and was looking at her lying there with anxious eyes that were imploring. Now she realised what the question meant.

“We’re on a bike ride,” Kerstin replied. “We stumbled on this seemingly abandoned place, sought shelter from the rain and decided to eat our lunch out on the covered veranda. I needed a shit, and I took the chance to use the outdoor privy. Then we saw a car turn up and you hid behind the end of the house. And so on. After that, we’ll stick to the truth. Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll get on then. How is he doing?”

“He’s breathing, and his temperature is rising. He’ll be okay. Thanks to you, Jen.”

“Thanks to me?”

“It was you who noticed the weird thing happening over by the root cellar.”