‘That girl’s not well!’

She strode off toward the back of the house and her mother followed.

‘I don’t know what she’s involved in, what kind of people she’s entangled with, that cult and the website and all of that, but you have to be careful. You have to stay away from her. Can’t you see that?’

Kent Sillfors was rocking his grandchild in a hammock tied between two birch trees; when Diana walked over and picked her up, he withdrew, looking dejected.

It didn’t occur to her that letting the girl near the squirrel might be problematic until she was already unlocking the car door. She saw the reflection of the little girl in her arms in the window, the way she pressed herself to a person who had a distinct hint of desperation in her eyes. Glistening with sweat and exhausted, with her battered face shaded by a baseball cap like a woman in the witness protection programme on the run from some monstrous man. She could hear her parents arguing behind the house. Her mother’s shrill voice, her father’s rumbling one. That made her open the door. She buckled the little girl into the car seat.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘it’s just a squirrel.’

*

She explained to the little girl that it was Susso’s squirrel and that it was going to be staying in their garage while she was in the hospital and she had to promise not to tell Daddy, and the little girl nodded, electrified by the idea of keeping a secret. They crept through the laundry room whispering to each other and then carried on whispering in the kitchen.

‘Wait here while I check on Daddy.’

She went upstairs. The door to their bedroom was ajar. The blinds were down and he was in bed with his work computer on his stomach. When he spotted her, he closed it and sat up. His smoothed-out face shone palely and little blemishes had broken out around the follicles on his Adam’s apple. A naked hip bone was peeking out from under the covers.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Where have you been?’

‘Kiruna’s been with Mum and Dad. And me, I went to get Susso. As I wrote on the note in the kitchen.’

‘Get her from where?’

‘I’ll tell you about it later.’

She sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘But either way, she’s back now.’

‘In Vittangi?’

‘No, she’s in the hospital. Have you had anything to eat?’

He stared at her uncomprehendingly.

‘Nutrition. Have you had any nutrition lately? Because you look like it’s been a while. Clinically, I would guess about three months.’

She reached over to the nightstand and picked up the jars sitting on it. After reading their labels, she held one up to him with her eyebrows raised.

‘Are you out of your mind?’