To dot the final i, she turned on the floor lamp and aimed it at the letter. Then she went into the bedroom, crawled into bed and set the alarm on her phone for half five.

Hampus stepped through the front door twenty minutes later, but Lilja was already too asleep to notice anything other than her own dreams. Not even her phone on the bedside table managed to cut through the oblivion when, an hour later, it lit up and emitted the sound that meant she’d received a text message.

Soon, the little Jew cunt is going to be crying blood. Soon…

77

Fabian put on an oven glove and took the lasagne out. ‘Matilda, could you go upstairs and let your mother and Theo know dinner’s ready?’

‘Mm…’ said Matilda, who was still sulking about him listening in on their séance.

He’d tried to convince her Greta was probably completely indifferent to his presence. He, who didn’t even believe in spirits. And he’d tried to persuade her that the words All you know is wrong was simply her way of telling them they’d misunderstood her words a month ago or that she’d been mistaken herself, and that there was nothing to worry about.

But she hadn’t bought his arguments, and to be honest, he wasn’t sure he did either. Somehow, you just couldn’t get around the fact that the whole thing was very strange.

All you know is wrong.

His own explanation about it being a random string of letters didn’t add up either. And if it wasn’t that, what was it?

What’s for dinner?

He read the text from Theo and replied Lasagne and added a small Come on. It’s going to be delicious. And nice :)

‘Matilda, go and let Mum know.’

‘Oh my God, nag much? Calm down.’

‘I’m completely calm, but the food’s getting cold.’

I’ll skip it, have a sandwich or whatever later.

The text was so typical of his son. A nonchalant shrug to signal just how little he cared.

No, Theo, you won’t, he wrote as quickly as he could. You’re going to come down, and you’re going to have dinner with the rest of your family. And you’re going to do it now.

‘If it’s that important, why don’t you go yourself?’ Matilda said.

Don’t think so. PS: Might be a bit late for the whole authoritarian father bit.

Fabian left the kitchen without replying, climbed the stairs in a few steps and threw open Theodor’s door. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he said as he entered the room, where Theo was sitting on the desk, smoking by the open window. ‘And what have we said about smoking?’ He snatched the cigarette out of his son’s mouth and ground it out against the desktop.