There was no doubt it was Matilda lying there in the bed. The problem was that it didn’t feel like it was her looking back at him.

‘I don’t know if you have any idea what happened to you,’ he said, with no real plan of how to go on.

‘I remember,’ she said, and he instantly understood that her memories of that night were as detailed as his own.

The perpetrator must have broken in and surprised them, her and her friend Esmaralda. Maybe they had been down in the basement, performing one of their séances. Then he had forced them up into the living room and placed them on the sofa next to Sonja to wait for him to come home.

He, her own father, who should have been her rock, but who was so often absent, even when he was home. He, who once he did show up hadn’t reacted to the first warning, but only realized it was serious when it was too late. When the bullet had already ripped through her stomach, causing her to collapse, bleeding, on the rug.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, instantly regretting it. How could she ever forgive him?

‘You did your best,’ she said faintly. ‘How can anyone do more than that?’

Had he heard that right? Was this really Matilda?

‘That’s not the problem,’ she continued, seemingly about to drift off.

‘No? Then what is? Matilda, tell me so I can help you.’

‘There’s nothing you can do. Like so many other things, it’s not up to you.’

‘I don’t understand. What’s the matter? You’re alive, and according to the doctors, you’re going to make a complete recovery.’ He took her other hand, too. ‘The fact that you’re lying here, talking to me, is amazing.’

‘That’s exactly it.’ She heaved a sigh and closed her eyes. ‘I survived.’

‘Matilda, listen to me. You don’t think that I… Me and Mum, who’s on her way over here right now, by the way, we love you more than anything. I hope you know that. Nothing can make us happier than that you’re all right and still with us.’

Matilda shook her head. ‘It’s not that.’

‘Okay.’ He tried to catch her eye, but this time she was too weak. ‘Can you tell me what it is?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘At least give me a chance.’ No matter how much he wanted her to confide in him, he could understand her silence. He was the one who had let that monster over their threshold.

‘Greta.’ The word was whispered so quietly, Fabian was unsure he had heard it right.

‘Greta?’

Matilda swallowed. ‘Water… Is there water?’