‘But you know who Gunnar Myrén is?’

He nodded.

‘What’s with the face?’

‘What face?’

She grimaced.

He had cut the bag of seasoning open and was sprinkling it over the mince.

‘Isn’t he a bit kitschy?’

‘Either way, he took a picture of a troll. An aerial photograph. In Sarek. It’s a bear and there’s someone sitting on it, riding it. But it’s impossible to say what it is.’

‘And this is a photograph we’re talking about, a proper photograph?’

‘Yes, to the extent that a photograph of a troll can be a proper photograph.’

‘Which it can’t be. And I’m fairly convinced I have all of science on my side when I say that.’

‘I’ve seen it.’

‘All right.’

‘It looks very real.’

‘Photoshop?’

‘This was the eighties.’

‘There were obviously ways to doctor images back then too.’

‘Could you stop putting him down! He’s kitsch and the picture’s fake. I’m Håkan and I’m a doctor, I’m scientific and everyone else is stupid.’

‘I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about Susso’s grandfather.’ He pointed the spatula at her. ‘Not your grandfather.’

‘Regardless, it was something she did. For a while.’

‘Trolls.’

‘She wanted to know if they were real. She had a website, a cryptozoological website, where she wrote about these things and posted pictures. That she had taken or people had sent to her. And through this website she got in touch with an old lady in Jokkis who had seen some dodgy creature in her garden. So Susso went down there and installed one of those cameras that take pictures by themselves. A trail camera. And it snapped a picture of a little man.’

‘That was the one in the paper, when that kid had been kidnapped?’

‘Yes, they suspected him of having taken the boy.’

‘But he hadn’t?’

With a mouth full of wine, she shook her head.

‘He was innocent?’

‘Yes,’ she said and put her glass down on the floor.

‘So who was he?’

‘Who was who?’

‘The person in the picture! The little man.’

‘No one knows.’

‘He hasn’t come forward?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Why didn’t he come forward, if he didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping?’

‘How should I know?’

‘That’s weird though, right? You’re going to have to move your belles fesses.’

Without getting up, she scooched sideways so Håkan could open the fridge door.

‘But you think he’s real?’

‘Real?’

‘Yes, you don’t think Susso conjured him digitally, so to speak. Carrying on the Myrén family tradition.’

She pondered that with her eyes on the floor.

‘The thought has crossed your mind?’

‘It might have.’

‘But you know her. Would she, in your opinion, be capable of producing a counterfeit photograph for the purposes of misleading the police and general public?’