‘Makes you wonder what they must be like,’ he said. ‘The one who stayed.’

‘I suppose it’s him,’ I said. ‘Erasmus.’

‘Erasmus of Rotterdam,’ Roland said. ‘Well, since we have a name, and an address, let’s just send the sheriff in after them.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘let’s not!’

‘Why not?’

‘There’s nothing they can do. Don’t you get it? Don’t you remember what it was like last time? We had zero help from the police. You might as well ask them to do something about the weather!’

‘I don’t understand you,’ Diana said. ‘Of course we have to go to the police.’

‘There’s no point,’ I said with a sigh.

I had locked myself in a bubble of feigned resignation and I stayed in it until Diana left. Then, I lashed out at Roland.

‘How can you even think of getting the police involved! They’re going to go out to Susso’s and sniff around. With dogs and everything, like you said.’

‘Isn’t the most important thing that we get her back?’

‘I don’t want them going out there. Is that so hard to understand?’

‘Then we’ll have to move him first.’

‘Fine, be my guest. You with your back.’

‘Can we talk to the police if I make sure he’s moved first?’

‘Are you serious?’

He nodded.

‘We can talk to them, but it won’t accomplish anything. Firstly, because they think our entire family is full of lunatics; you can be sure that’s down in some record somewhere. They think everything we say is lies. And secondly, there’s nothing they can do. The creatures who have taken her, they’re not human. Are you hearing me? They’re not human. And whatever human traits they may have, they’re external.’

He bent down and picked up the doll, which he had dropped on the floor.

‘I keep dropping things,’ he mumbled. ‘Yes, I’m hearing you.’

‘But you don’t believe me. It was the same thing when I told you about the squirrel and the mouse. You sit there and you nod, but you don’t believe me. In your heart of hearts, you don’t believe me.’

He watched me silently with sad eyes.

‘She’s gone. I have to accept it.’

‘For the life of me, I can’t understand your way of thinking.’

‘That much is clear by now, painfully so in fact.’

‘You can’t just give up and let them keep her.’

‘My girls are gone. And it’s my fault. And Dad’s fault.’

I pushed over a stack of photo books that crashed onto the floor but instantly regretted it and squatted down to pick them up.