Roland was already up, of course. And vanished without a trace, as I discovered when I went into the kitchen. He hadn’t even read the paper. I licked my thumb and flipped through the news. Nothing about Lennart Brösth. Not a word. I had a shower and then sat down on the balcony with my coffee cup, shivering with cold. Four boys walked down the street carrying a section of a fence; they were heading toward the main stage in Ferrum Park, where Status Quo were booked to play. Thrilled shrieks were drifting up from the spinning rides at the carnival.

It was going to be a busy day; Ella was coming in to lend a hand and I knew she was looking forward to it. Not only because she needed the money. She liked manning the till. Taking payments and using her English. And spending time with her grandmother.

She was waiting for me in the foyer. Dressed in a short-sleeved shirt with a printed outline of Kiruna’s two famous high-rises, and the text ‘The Erskine Skyline’. The shirt was from the shop; I’d given her it for Christmas and I welled up picturing her back in that grimy, chaotic flat, picking this out as something suitable to wear. I squeezed out a smile but immediately realised she saw right through me with those shy, worried eyes of hers.

I unlocked the door and went over to the counter and put my handbag down. Ella went and picked up a book. A picture book. She always looked through the children’s books, she was still that young.

‘Well then,’ I said, ‘how’s your mother?’

She shrugged.

‘She’s at some spa. In Piteå.’

‘Again?’

‘She said she needed to pamper herself a little.’

‘Well then. Right. Have you seen these? Pretty, don’t you think?’

She looked at the cloudberry I was holding out and then she took it in her hand and weighed it.

‘What’s it made of?’

‘I should probably know that. What do you reckon, glass? So you’re home alone now then?’

She nodded and I sighed.

‘It’s okay. I like being alone.’

I put the cloudberry back in its little box, then pulled out the drawer, put the box in it, closed the drawer and locked it.

‘He was in the paper. That old man.’

‘He was. But they’ll catch him before you know it.’

The girl was quiet for a moment.

‘That picture your dad took, do you have it here?’

‘What picture?’ I said, even though I knew very well which picture she meant.

‘The one with the troll.’

‘No, it’s not here.’

‘Then where is it?’

‘It’s gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Oh look, customers.’

Lennart peered into the reeking…

Lennart peered into the reeking darkness of the back of the van. A patchwork of newspapers and flattened cardboard on the floor and at the far end, a small armchair with upholstered buttons.