‘Those are the humans you’re talking about, they’re the trolls’ humans. Some of them are the trolls’ offspring. Because sometimes trolls breed with humans and the result is true freaks. Lennart Brösth is one of those freaks. That’s why he’s so old. Remember how he sawed off his own hand? During the trial, they said he was trying to kill himself, remember?’

She nodded.

‘He wasn’t. He sawed off his hand so no one would see what it looked like. See it was furry. And had claws!’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I’ve met one of those freaks. She came here, to the shop, an elegant Norwegian lady in a wheelchair. She looked like an old film star. The wheelchair was exactly where you’re standing now, and she had a hairy finger with a claw on it and she scraped that little claw against the palm of my hand, like this; I’ll never forget it.’

Diana was studying Dad’s books, which were stacked in neat piles on the counter; it wasn’t easy to tell what she thought of what I’d just told her. By all appearances, it had been too much to take in at once, so I told her to go home and rest. That made her shake her head.

‘We have to agree on what to tell the police.’

‘There’s no point sending the police after them, don’t you see? It won’t accomplish anything.’

‘Of course we’re calling the police.’

‘No, Diana. There’s no point.’

‘Then what do we do?’

I sighed.

‘Other than sigh,’ Diana said.

‘I can’t take this any more. Can you understand that?’

‘The reason it’s ended up this way is that you can’t take it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You let her go. When she wanted to move.’

‘What was I supposed to do, she’s thirty-five years—’

‘When she moved here! Here, Gudrun. In 1994.’

‘But she wanted to.’

‘And Kiruna wants to eat ice cream and sweets every day. Do you think we let her?’

‘That’s hardly the same thing.’

‘Yes, it is, actually. As a parent, you have an obligation to stand firm. To resist! To not yield. You let her have her way because you couldn’t take her nagging and that was weak, and a betrayal. Then she sat around down here, all alone, and started developing an interest in things that turned out to be very, very dangerous. And now, when you have a chance to do something about it, twenty years later, when you actually get that second chance, you’re making the same mistake again. You’re letting her down again.’

‘I just don’t know what to do.’

‘Try to channel that guilty conscience and that pathetic self-pity into something useful instead, and be the parent you should have been back then.’

‘I think you’re being unfair.’