‘Sure, but they were children when they were taken.’

She nodded.

‘How did you find them?’

Susso kept her eyes fixed on her. Her pupils were so dilated it made her brown eyes look black. She looked at her for a long time without speaking; eventually, Diana started feeling uncomfortable and just then, it was as if Susso released her hold on her.

‘We had help.’

‘From whom?’

Susso sat with a hand over her mouth, as though she were pondering something. Then she moved her hand, slowly extending it and unfurling her index finger to point to somewhere diagonally behind Diana.

Diana turned around, but it took her a moment to spot what Susso was pointing at. It was a squirrel; when she saw it, she let out a surprised yelp. It was standing on all fours on top of the fridge, between a roll of kitchen towels and a packet of crispbread, staring at her. The bushy plume of its tail pointed straight up and was twitching rapidly.

‘A squirrel.’

‘He’s secretly not a squirrel. Or at least not just a squirrel.’

Diana bunched her eyebrows together.

‘You’re being weird again.’

‘It’s a very old squirrel.’

‘Yeah, he looks a bit mangy.’

‘Watch what you say. He understands Swedish and he holds a grudge. He never forgets.’

She couldn’t tell if Susso was pulling her leg or if she really believed the squirrel was as old as she claimed. And understood Swedish to boot. That kind of conviction would be very much in line with what she had used to believe, which was why Diana was neither worried nor even surprised. She had figured the charmingly eccentric Susso she’d grown up with was gone forever and that a disillusioned spinster had taken her place. But that evidently wasn’t the case, and it made her want to laugh.

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing?’

The look on Diana’s face drew a half-muffled chuckle from Susso and then they both burst out laughing. Susso got up and put the glasses on the counter.

‘May I offer you a Chinese gooseberry?’

Diana made a resigned gesture; she had no idea what she meant.

‘Would you like a kiwi? I bought kiwis.’

‘Of course I want a kiwi. Can I have two?’

‘Yes, you can.’

Elias was sitting outside Frasse’s…

Elias was sitting outside Frasse’s, alone under a parasol that was being inflated by the wind, making it look like an undulating jellyfish. From time to time, he put his burger down on the tray and drank from a paper cup and gobbled down clutches of French fries. Lennart looked around before crossing the car park. A newspaper placard on the wall. Nothing about the escaped cult leader. A sandwich board outside the shop. Special offer! Cantaloupes ten kronor per kilo. He sat down across from the young man, who instantly drew back in fear and lowered his eyes.