I bent down and pulled out a drawer. Took out her phone and put it on the counter. She picked it up and checked the screen.

‘Eleven missed calls.’

‘It was ringing in here, so I turned the sound off.’

She nodded.

‘He didn’t tell you that? Håkan.’

‘No.’

‘Nothing?’

‘We’ve barely spoken. He’s at work.’

I got to my feet. Customers had entered the shop.

‘And the little girl, is she at nursery school?’

Diana shook her head.

‘With my parents.’

‘Then you should go home and get some rest.’

‘I can’t.’

A woman came up to the counter with a stack of kitchen towels. Black moose stamped on unbleached linen. She put the towels down and pulled out her wallet and while I served her, Diana sat with her head turned away, gazing out across the square.

When we were alone again, neither one of us knew how to proceed, so we just sat staring at each other. At length, she asked what we should do.

‘About what?’

‘About Susso, of course!’

‘I don’t know, Diana.’

‘You don’t seem to care all that much.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Because that’s how it seems.’

‘It’s just that I’ve known this day was coming. I’ve known they would take her, sooner or later. That it was inevitable.’ The incredulous look spreading across Diana’s face made me lower my voice. ‘That person you saw. The one with the mask. You do realise that wasn’t a human, don’t you?’

‘He had a tail. So I kind of figured.’

‘And what are your thoughts on that?’

‘My thoughts?’

‘Yes. About him having a tail.’

Diana crossed her arms.

‘I suppose it’s some kind of birth defect.’

‘There’s another word for it, and that’s troll. You saw a troll, Diana. A real troll. They come in all sizes. Some are as big as bears and some as small as mice. Because they are bears and they are mice. On the outside. They can transform. This is something I’ve seen with my own eyes. Susso shot a troll, she shoved a gun into its mouth and pulled the trigger and the moment it died, the troll turned into a bear. I saw it for myself, so I know it’s true.’

I glanced over at the door before carrying on.

‘The unsettling thing about them is that they can force their way into your consciousness and make you not be yourself. That’s what’s happened to Susso; you’ve seen her, you know what I’m talking about.’

‘They’re not trolls,’ she said, ‘they’re people. A cult or something. They spoke Norwegian.’