‘Are you deaf? I said this is your fault!’ Theodor was speaking so loudly the priest faltered.

‘Theodor, not now,’ he finally managed. ‘We can talk about it later.’

‘What do you mean, later?’ That was Sonja, and now the whole congregation was listening. ‘It’s already too late. Don’t you get it? Our daughter doesn’t exist any more.’ She burst into tears.

‘Sonja, please…’ Fabian put his arms around her, but she slapped them away.

‘Theo’s right. This is all your fault!’

‘Exactly. So don’t try to blame us,’ a third voice piped up behind him.

He turned around and saw it was his boss, Astrid Tuvesson, who was sitting together with his colleagues Ingvar Molander, Klippan and Irene Lilja. He was just about to ask her why she was sticking her nose in, but was interrupted by the sound of the organ launching into the next hymn, which made the rest of the congregation stand up and start singing.

He didn’t have the energy to do anything but slump in his seat, letting his eyes rove across the people singing around him. Everyone except Molander, who, though he was standing up and moving his lips, was not singing. Rather, he looked like he was talking. Was he saying something to him?

Fabian pointed to himself. Molander nodded, leaned forward and whispered in his ear, ‘Drop it.’

‘Drop what?’ Fabian didn’t understand.

‘You’re never going to prove it anyway.’ Molander stuck his tongue out and pretended to hang himself, then he let out a raucous laugh that was drowned out by the howling feedback of the priest’s microphone.

The alarm penetrated deeper and deeper into Fabian’s subconscious. A beeping tinnitus note that eventually coaxed him into opening his eyes and realizing he wasn’t in a church at all, but in the hospital, in the room where he and Sonja had taken turns sitting with Matilda for the past month. The only thing he didn’t recognize was the dirty white curtain hiding the bed where she lay.

He could hear voices from the other side and got up out of the armchair, tore back the curtain and saw one of the three nurses pushing and turning the howling machine’s buttons. The other two stood on either side of the bed, checking Matilda’s pulse and eyes.

‘What happened?’ he said, but there was no reply. ‘Excuse me, could someone please tell me what the fuck’s going on?’

The shrill beeping stopped, leaving an oppressive silence in its wake. The three nurses exchanged looks; Fabian tried to gauge whether they had the situation under control.

Then Matilda coughed and opened her eyes. His darling daughter, who had been gone for an eternity, finally looked around the room with enquiring eyes. And then tears started trickling down his cheeks. It was as though they had been waiting for this, longing to burst forth.