‘What’s wrong with you? Let go of me!’

‘I don’t want you to go.’

‘If he’s there, I have to see him. I promised Dad we’d get him here.’

‘But I was probably mistaken. It probably wasn’t him.’

He held her hard and nestled his head in under her hair and kissed her neck and when she tried to wrest free, he turned rough, the way he’d learnt she liked. He ushered her toward the front door and into the hallway and shoved a knee in between her legs and pushed it against her genitals hard; she opened her mouth and hissed like a malevolent spirit.

‘You can take those off now…

‘You can take those off now, Diana. We know what you look like. Underneath.’

‘It’s not that,’ she said and put her hand on her baseball cap as she leaned her elbow on the table. ‘I’m paranoid. I have it in my head that he’s going to walk by on the street and spot me.’

‘Here? On our street?’

‘That’s not a rational fear,’ her father said.

‘No, it can’t be, since he’s dead.’

‘And now you’re laughing, how can you laugh? My poor darling.’

Her mother reached out and put her hand on her hand and squeezed it; she squeezed it hard.

‘We’ll have to be grateful,’ she said, ‘that you came back.’

‘I know you think I was mistaken, that I was exhausted and delirious. But I know what I saw and I’m asking you, begging you, actually, not to try to wear me down.’

‘Wear you down?’

‘Try to persuade me that what I saw wasn’t real. He was this tall and had a tail and these people who have taken Susso, they’re not normal. You have to believe me. Dad. You have to believe me.’

Kent Sillfors put his hand over his mouth, leaned back in his chair and studied his daughter.

‘Maybe we should shelve this discussion,’ he said at length. ‘And focus on what needs doing instead.’

‘What’s to discuss,’ her mother said, ‘we have to call the police!’ She leaned in and whispered. ‘You were kidnapped.’

‘Eva,’ he said. ‘Go easy on the girl. You never know how something like this can affect the rest of your life. Granted, I don’t think there is any risk of legal consequences. But you never know. You never know. If Diana states that she was present when this Norwegian man killed himself and it turns out to be impossible to prove that anyone else was, things could get sticky. You’re not likely to be convicted of anything, but you know how people talk. That doctor who was involved in that weird suicide up in Finnmark. Things like that never go away. They can be held against you for the rest of your life.’