He slowly turns his head and looks up the street; as if in slow motion he can see men in jeans and leather jackets jump out of a black van. It’s only then that life returns to him, reality returns to colour and sound, and he hears the man shouting from the car, right in front of him.

‘Come on!’ he screams in Swedish. ‘Get in the car now! Hurry up, for fuck’s sake!’

Finally he obeys and takes a few steps towards the car, rips open the door and falls into the back seat. Somehow, he gets the door closed again and the car almost leaps forward with Jacob’s face pressed against the cool leather of the seat. He hears the engine rev, and the man’s stressed voice somewhere in front of him, but he doesn’t have the strength to turn around, can’t even take in where he is, who they are, what’s happening around him.

Finally, he lifts himself up onto an elbow.

‘Take a right there!’ the man shouts.

‘Where? The next one?’ says the person driving.

Jacob is almost sitting up now, and he sees it’s a woman driving. Black hair, short, some kind of pixie cut, probably around thirty. She’s holding onto the wheel so hard her knuckles are white.

‘Next turn,’ the man says.

The man sounds calmer now, but it’s hard-won, as if he’s trying to tame something that’s coursing inside him. The car turns and slows down.

‘Damn it!’ the woman shouts. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’

She drums her hands on the wheel, and Jacob realizes that they’re stuck at a red light and the traffic is heavier here. He turns around and sees a queue forming behind them as well. Slowly the lights change, and they follow the traffic forward again.

The man turns to look through the rear window, maybe to check if they’re being followed.

‘Hi,’ he says hesitantly to Jacob. ‘I really hope you are who we think you are. Otherwise, I don’t really know what to say.’

‘How does it look?’ the woman asks grimly. ‘Do you see anything? Are they after us?’

She’s driving calmly now, following the traffic down a wide street towards a roundabout with a statue in the middle. Buses and trams pass by in the opposite direction.

‘I don’t know,’ the man says. ‘Not that I can see.’

‘What…’ Jacob begins. He wants to help them keep watch, but doesn’t know what to look for. ‘What happened?’ he says.

‘Klara here had the brilliant idea of shooting the tyres on the Russians’ van,’ the man says. ‘So they couldn’t follow us when we picked you up.’

Even after everything that’s happened to him in recent months, this sounds very strange. He’s just falling deeper and deeper into the rabbit’s hole. ‘Russians’ van?’ he says hesitantly.