They were sitting at a rickety little plastic table, eating with sweat beading on their foreheads in the sunshine that created prisms in their drinking glasses. Salmon and potatoes wrapped in tinfoil with butter and cloves of garlic. Susso had caught the salmon herself. A plastic boat with an outboard motor was moored down by the jetty; she used it for fishing. When Diana heard this, she laughed so hard she did a spit take into her hand. Susso wanted to know what was so funny.

‘There’s something about this life you’ve made for yourself,’ she said, making a sweeping gesture with her bottle. ‘You live here, all alone, outside bloody Vittangi of all places. Together with – a squirrel. Who understands Swedish. And from time to time you paddle out and catch a salmon or two.’

She had, yet again, made her spill something she would rather have kept to herself. And, yet again, Susso seemed unperturbed.

‘You feel sorry for me.’

‘Yes, I do. I find it pretty tragic. But it makes me mad too, at your mum, because I think it’s her fault. She’s the one who made you think trolls are real. And talking squirrels.’

‘I never said he could talk.’

‘You’ve been brainwashed. By your mother.’

Susso got to her feet.

‘I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. Then she picked up their plates and carried them inside.

Diana gazed out across the garden. She had sucked down two beers while the tinfoil packets sizzled on the grill, but she felt like she’d had ten. Her head was spinning and there were grease stains on her thighs from all the food she’d dropped on herself. And all the things she had blurted out! It must have been lurking somewhere inside her. But it was the fact that Susso didn’t seem to care in the slightest too. The old Susso would have been furious. And given as good as she got. This one, she just sat there. It was almost like she enjoyed it.

She pulled out her phone. She’d received a picture of Kiruna. She was on the merry-go-round, sitting on the back of an animal of an unidentifiable species, looking solemn. She tapped in a long row of hearts in reply. When she stood up, she lost her balance. That made her start talking to herself, which she continued to do while she cleared the table and carried the overloaded tray inside. The kitchen door was closed and when she tried to open it by pushing the handle down with her elbow, Susso came out of the bathroom.

‘Don’t open it! I trapped him in there.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve trapped him. So I know where he is.’

They carried their chairs down to the jetty. Susso fetched a bag of beer that she tied to a rope and lowered into the water.