The women were sitting next to each other on the ground. They looked like they were waiting for help to arrive after being in a car crash. The woman with glasses was taking small, shallow breaths. It was as though the automation of her lungs had stopped working and she now had to focus all her attention on breathing. Abraham gave her a kick.

‘It’s this one.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘The other one, should we leave her here?’

Grete shook her head.

‘We’re bringing her.’

‘Is she coming in the motorhome?’

‘No, you’re going to have to take her in one of those.’

She pointed to the cars parked under the birch trees. That was when they noticed the door on the driver’s side of the van was open. There was no sign of Elias.

‘What’s his name again?’ Abraham said.

‘Elias,’ Lennart told him.

‘Elias!’

Grete waved her hand dismissively.

‘Let him go.’

She got out of the wheelchair, leaning on Ingvill’s arm.

‘Lennart. You’ll drive the van. It’s an automatic.’

‘What about the boy?’

‘The boy will go with you; he’ll keep you company.’

Abraham took the boy and buckled him into the car seat; when he was done, he dug his fingers into the child’s puffy stomach and made a sound that was supposed to amuse the boy, but he neither laughed nor smiled, just looked at him. When Abraham shut the door, the child turned its eyes to Lennart. His bottom lip was wet with saliva and white splinters were poking through his pink gums. The little boy raised his sock-clad hand and rubbed it against the plaster on his cheek.

‘Don’t do that. It’s not a good idea,’ Lennart said and turned on the engine.

When Diana opened her eyes in the dark…

When Diana opened her eyes in the dark, she had been dozing for what felt like hours, thinking she should open her eyes any moment now. For some reason, she had put it off, again and again. She had been busy with other things. Entangled in something that had seemed so important she hadn’t been able to tear herself away from it.

But now she lay there, blinking. It wasn’t completely pitch black and she knew she was in a car. The sound of the engine had penetrated her sleep. Though it hadn’t been proper sleep. More like some kind of numbed stupor. Which she was still under the sway of. Because she didn’t panic. Not even when she realised her hands were tied, and her feet too.

Susso, she thought to herself. Did I go to Susso’s house?

She tried to rip the tape around her hands apart but was unable to, and the tape around her feet was every bit as tight. When she wiggled around, she spotted something she recognised. She blinked and tried to focus.

Kiruna’s denim skirt.