‘Where’s Ransu?’ said the old man, who had sat down next to the woman and entwined his fingers in hers.

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘So that is what you bring us? Lies and a bag of money.’

She said nothing for a while.

‘We dropped him off. Further up the road.’

‘Where?’

‘Up by the main road. But I can get him. I can bring him down here. So long as you promise not to hurt him.’

She got up on all fours and crawled toward her father like a dog. The lid for the béarnaise sauce clung to her back like a sticker.

‘Please, Daddy. We have nowhere else to go.’

I didn’t recognise her at first…

I didn’t recognise her at first. She wore a baseball cap and sunglasses and her cheek was blue, the way it only ever gets when you’ve been beaten up, and I figured it was a junkie who wasn’t going to buy anything but definitely cause trouble, maybe even shoplift. So I glared at her as she approached the counter and when I realised it was Diana standing in front of me, I clapped my hand to my mouth.

‘You were right,’ she said, gesturing to her face.

I couldn’t get a word out; all I could do was stare.

‘You said they were dangerous. You were right.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She’s with someone called Erasmus. In Runajärvi.’

‘Who’s Erasmus?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then how do you know she’s there? Maybe she’s home.’

She shook her head and then she told me what she’d been through over the past few days. I asked a lot of questions, and then repeated each one even though she’d already answered them.

‘And you didn’t see Lennart Brösth?’

‘I didn’t see anything. I had tape on my face.’

She grimaced at the pain her smile caused.

‘It’s my fault,’ I said.

‘Your fault?’

‘I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.’

‘You know what? I’m glad you did.’

‘How can you be, looking like that …’

‘It was a good thing I went out there. Otherwise she’d be gone now and we wouldn’t have known. We wouldn’t have known anything.’

‘Do you really mean that?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘How’s Håkan doing?’

‘Håkan?’

‘He came here. Last Saturday. When you hadn’t come home when you said you would. And he couldn’t reach you on your phone. So we went out there. To Susso’s. But we weren’t sure what had happened. Since you were just gone. Given that you hadn’t seen each other in so long, we figured you had probably gone off somewhere. Your car wasn’t there.’

‘Without letting him know? And without bringing my phone?’