He reached out for the young man who had refused his money and after he had backed himself into the evening papers with a terrified look on his face, he caught hold of him with his massive hand. He squeezed his childishly weak throat. At first, the man tried to wrest free, but then his face turned red and he helplessly started scratching and touching anything he could reach: the sleeve of Lennart’s jacket, his zipper, his buttons, the boy. In the end, he was simply wiggling his fingers in the air as if performing a hexing so petrifying it was only ever used as a last resort. Lennart let go and tossed him aside. The man crashed into a shelf and lay there, sucking air into his lungs with long, hissing breaths.

He went out to the van and buckled the child in and started the engine and turned out onto the road. After driving for a while, he glanced at the child. His plaster had come off. It was dangling like an open hatch door. The wound was a nasty-looking hole through his cheek, about half an inch across. It looked more like an acid injury than something he’d scratched open.

Lennart put his stump on the wheel and stuck the plaster back on. Then he fished a banana out of his jacket pocket.

‘Here you go. And if you’re going to be peeling bananas one-handed, there’s one thing you have to get straight: they’re easier to open from this end. See? People open them from this end, but that’s wrong. Or maybe not wrong, but it’s harder. Dig in.’

The car was parked behind…

The car was parked behind the petrol station, seemingly deliberately tucked away. It was a Chevy, a very long and pompous hatchback with light wood panelling on the sides. There was a doll’s head with sooty angel’s hair on the tow ball; I thought it looked creepy.

Roland climbed out and went over to talk to someone sitting in it. I couldn’t see who it was; all I could see was a leg sticking out the door. Camouflage trousers, white with a grey and black woodland pattern.

I’d felt sick all morning and now it washed over me again, like a cold undertow. Roland had told me not to come, but I had been too restless to stay at the hotel. A hundred yards from my own flat, which felt odd in an incredibly enervating way. Besides, being around Diana and her little girl made me feel awful. Not to mention Susso, and even more so her flame-coloured rat, which was never where you thought it would be.