‘Your voice is different. You sound like yourself now. You didn’t when I came to your house.’

‘I didn’t?’

Diana shook her head.

‘You were someone else. At least that’s how it seemed to me. And your mum. And we’re the people who know you best.’

Susso pulled her hand away, slowly.

‘Where is he?’

‘Let’s talk about that later. You need to rest.’

‘Why can’t you just tell me where he is?’

‘It.’ She had lowered her voice so Kiruna wouldn’t hear. ‘I can tell you where it is.’

Susso watched her.

‘It bit me. Here. Look. I’ve had a tetanus shot. No, I haven’t. But I should.’

‘Where is he?’

‘At our house.’

Susso’s thin fingers nervously slid up and down the side rail.

‘I need him with me.’

‘No, you don’t. Kirri. Go out in the hallway and ask someone if you can have some more squash.’

‘I don’t want any more.’

‘No, but Susso does. You drank all of hers.’

After the little girl left with the cup in her hands, they sat in silence for a minute. Susso turned away.

‘They’re going to take me again.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘I don’t understand what they want with you. If they were looking for revenge for you shooting that bear, wouldn’t they have taken care of that already? But you were just lying there and you can’t have done much else because you have bedsores like an old peach. Maybe the eye was enough.’

‘They were going to give me to someone. Because I know they took me to a cave somewhere. But I never went inside.’

‘A cave?’

She nodded.

‘Where, in Rumajärvi?’

‘No, it was further north. In Norway.’

‘By the sea? On a mountain with a bunch of bunkers and whatnot?’

Susso nodded.

‘I was there too. They were going to throw me off a cliff. But then that old man who appeared in your garden came and rescued me. Don’t ask me why.’

‘What old man?’

‘You don’t remember?’

Susso shook her head.

‘This little old man appeared when we were sitting on the jetty. This tall. And he was wearing a mask made of a man’s face.’

Susso’s mouth was thin and pressed shut and from her wide-open eye it was clear she was desperately searching her memory. Diana quickly glanced over her shoulder before leaning in and whispering.

‘And he had a tail.’

Susso turned her face away. Then she heaved a deep sigh and after exhaling fully, she coughed.

‘How did you get hold of him?’

‘The squirrel? I drove out to your house and fetched it.’

‘You went to my house?’

‘Gudrun told me to.’

At that point, Kiruna returned, accompanied by a nurse who knew Diana. She was carrying a pitcher of red squash that she put down on the table.