‘You can just push the button,’ she said. ‘If there’s anything you need.’

‘And here I thought you usually worked with pot-lids,’ Diana said.

‘They’re discharging me tomorrow. I need him when I leave.’

‘I don’t think your mum’s going to appreciate it.’

‘No?’

Diana shook her head.

‘Or is it that you don’t want to give him up?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It was a question.’

‘That I’m not going to dignify with an answer.’

Susso snorted derisively and turned her eye to the ceiling.

To keep the little girl from overhearing, Diana leaned in over the bed.

‘They threatened me. They said they were going to take Kiruna if I didn’t get out of there and leave you with them.’

Susso said nothing.

‘What if they come for her?’

‘It’s me they’re after. You have nothing to worry about.’

Stava stepped through the door…

Stava stepped through the door, did a quick scan of the living room and continued into the kitchen. She threw her keys down on the counter and looked out the window. Anders lingered in the hallway. There was a mirror there and a small chest of drawers and on the chest of drawers a grey corded phone. No shoes and no clothes. He carried the cardboard box by the bottom because he didn’t like sticking his fingers through the handles. Not because he thought they would bite him, he just didn’t want them to see his fingers and get ideas.

‘You can bring them in here.’

He went into the kitchen and after putting the box down on the floor, he sat down on a chair, the only one in the room.

Stava sank into a squat. She drummed her fingers against the box. The blinds were closed, with sharp triangles where the slats had ended up askew. There was a pair of binoculars on the table. Black field binoculars with rubber eyecups.

‘Who lives here?’

‘Here? No one.’

‘It said Flatmo on the door.’

She shot him a crooked smile.

‘There’s no Flatmo here.’

She was on all fours, whispering at the box.

‘Should we let you out? Hm? Should we let you out?’

When she opened the lid, he turned away. He peered out through the blinds at the street below. The cars parked there. Puddles wreathed with blackened asphalt.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the little ones fan out across the floor. Some darted away and disappeared, others strolled around, sniffing the air with their trembling snouts. One stood dead still; Anders sensed it was looking at him, but he didn’t dare check.

Stava was digging around for one that preferred to stay in the darkness of the box.

‘I don’t understand why we have to do this,’ he said.

‘You were pretty close to killing me, or did you forget?’

He sat in silence, staring at the binoculars.