‘There are other methods,’ Roland said.

‘There are? Like what?’

He glanced at the side mirror.

‘I’m just saying.’

‘Where are we going to go? They’ve been to Diana’s house and they’ve been to her parents’. So what now, are we going to yours?’

‘They’ve been to Eva and Kent’s?’

‘Yes, and when they come for you, Mother, do you want the squirrel to be there or not? I’m just asking.’

I looked at Roland.

‘We can stay at a hotel,’ he said.

‘A hotel?’

‘At Ferrum.’

‘Are you serious?’

He nodded.

‘And then deal with this tomorrow.’

‘And how are you going to deal with it?’

He started the engine.

‘If you can’t see a way out, you have to make one.’

*

Susso was quiet all the way home. We all were, for that matter. Both Diana and I kept an eye on the road behind us, but there was no pursuit so far as we could tell. The little girl fell asleep, of course, but when we parked behind the hotel, she woke up and was anxious and wouldn’t get out of the car, and I wondered what they were going to think of us when we stepped into the lobby at half four in the morning with a crying child.

Roland and I took one room and Susso, Diana and the little girl another. They weren’t next to each other but on the same floor at least.

Roland rolled himself up in a sheet and was out like a light, but I ended up sitting on the edge of the bed, still fully dressed. After just a few minutes, there was a knock on the door. She stood there watching me and I obviously knew what she wanted. I fished the key out of Roland’s jacket pocket and held it out to her and she took it and left without a word.

Diana looked in through the kitchen…

Diana looked in through the kitchen window for a while before going up to the front door and unlocking it. The smells that greeted her cut her open; she had a sudden fit of vertigo and had to lean against the doorpost. A conglomerate of shoes on the hallway floor. His shoes weren’t there, nor had she thought they would be. Cold dejection had spread through her, leaving its mark on every thought, every feeling, every second. Anything that didn’t seem ominous seemed utterly meaningless.