She shook her head but Diana thought it seemed more like a reflex than an answer to her question. She limped after her, trying to catch her eye. She pleaded with her.

‘Please,’ she said.

‘They were going to someone called Erasmus. In Rumajärvi or Runajärvi or whatever it was. That’s all I know.’

The young woman wouldn’t say anything else and Diana watched her disappear between the labyrinthine cliffs. She stood still and then sank into a squat. She didn’t move for a long time. Then she trudged back. It wasn’t easy to find her way because all the cliffs looked identical, but eventually she spotted the lighthouse.

Since the van was gone, she sidled up to the Audi. It was locked, but she tried the handle anyway. Her handbag was on the seat inside. There was a knit jumper in it and she would have loved to put that on. She pondered whether she should try to break the window somehow. But her wish to keep the car intact was stronger than her yearning for warmth.

The person who appeared in the window reflection surprised her; she turned out the side mirror to inspect her face. She looked terrible. Her nose was broken and there was a violet monocle around her left eye. She palpated for fractures but found none. Her eye seemed able to follow all movements. She pulled up her top lip; her teeth looked intact. But she found it difficult to open her mouth wide. Her skull clicked and crunched.

She sat down with her back against the car and looked out across the damp, barren landscape while she pushed and prodded her jaw, as though the pain could be massaged away. How did you end up here? How the fuck did you end up here? Fucking Susso.

The mouse followed us everywhere…

The mouse followed us everywhere. Closing the front door or the door to the kitchen was pointless. There was a brief respite during which you prayed it wouldn’t reappear, but it always did.

I think it upset the little demon when I turned on the vacuum, because Håkan suddenly burst into tears. He was sitting at the table, sobbing uncontrollably and when I turned the vacuum off, it was almost like I turned off the tears as well. So I found a brush and pan instead.

He had stared at the mouse when he first noticed it and I had reminded him not to, and to be safe I had done so in English. ‘Don’t look,’ I told him. The best thing to do was ignore it. Which of course was easier said than done.

‘Gudrun,’ he said.

The mouse had climbed up on his shoe. It was turning this way and that, seemingly unsure which way to turn.

‘What do I do?’