‘Wasn’t it the other way around,’ he said, ‘that the picture she took had nothing to do with the kidnapping? Shouldn’t he be thanking her for pointing the police in the wrong direction? If there’s logic to the madness? Or am I wrong?’

‘She says they’re not like other people. They’re dangerous. A hundred years is not to him what it is to us.’

‘The old man certainly does seem spry.’

‘See what I mean? She says things like that while at the same time claiming Susso’s been acting weird.’

‘Though you have to wonder what acting weird entails, given that we’re talking about a person who actively and openly is searching for actual trolls. Minus plus minus. Maybe it means Susso has come to her senses?’

‘She’s moved to Vittangi.’

‘That’s actually how folies à deux work,’ he said. ‘It’s always one person sucking another into their delusions. And if the other person creates distance, like by moving away, the spell is broken, so to speak. And that seems to be the case here.’

‘I think she’s doing drugs.’

‘Drugs? How come?’

‘Gudrun says she’s a different person. That she’s skinny and no one seems to recognise her. On the other hand, maybe that’s to be expected if Susso’s doing her best to reject her. If it’s true that she’s realised she’s kind of been brainwashed.’

‘Who are her friends?’

‘She doesn’t have any. According to Gudrun she doesn’t see anyone.’

‘Addicts are not usually loners. Or does she grow her own? Was she good at chemistry in school?’

A clay fridge magnet was digging into the back of her head; she took it down. A flattened ladybird with big, rigid eyes. She held it in her hand; it was amazingly smooth to the touch. She counted the dots on its back. Couldn’t remember if she had made it or Håkan. Which one of them had laboured over placing the dots on it. She didn’t answer his question and he seemed to assume he’d gone too far because he used a different voice when he then asked if they had been classmates in upper secondary or before that.

‘Secondary school,’ she said. ‘But we were close after too. Until I moved to Umeå. Since then, we basically haven’t talked at all. We ran into each other once or twice just after we moved here. Swapped numbers and all that. But then it just didn’t happen.’

‘And this thing with the trolls, how did she get into that?’

‘Her grandfather was Gunnar Myrén. The photographer. Surely I’ve told you this before?’

‘I know you had a friend called Susso, and that she took that picture that was in the newspaper. That’s all I know. You never talk about her. You’ve never talked about her.’