That made him look up. Then it was as though he suddenly realised what he’d done, because he leapt up onto the bed and tried to resuscitate the man, who lay there with his mouth wide open, his baseball cap still on his head, oddly enough. He carried on for quite some time, doing rescue breathing, which looked obscene, and trying to get his heart to start beating, but what good did that do, the guy’s face looked like a prune. In the end, he gave up and slid back down to the floor and this time, he buried his head in his hands.

‘What have I done,’ he said, ‘what have I done.’

‘Håkan, it wasn’t your fault.’

‘How can you say that? I strangled him! I’ve strangled a person. And I don’t even know who he is. And I strangled him. Oh my God.’

He held his hands up in front of him and stared at them like they were two alien instruments.

I put a hand on his knee and maintained that it wasn’t his fault and that everything was going to be okay. Håkan pulled out his phone and moments later, Diana’s phone lit up on the bed; he reached for it and sat looking at it as it rang. It seemed to give him comfort. Then he said he was going to call the police.

‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Let’s think about this.’

He didn’t want to do that, he wanted to call straight away.

So I took his phone from him and put it in my handbag, and then I took Diana’s phone as well. I helped him up and led him out of the room, walking as slowly as I could make myself, only to then slam the door shut, quick as lightning, before the mouse could get out.

*

It had been sitting on the bed. A tiny little thing, not much bigger than a pine cone, and it was lucky I spotted it, because otherwise who knows what might have happened. There were bald patches in its fur, and it walked on two legs or four by turns. Håkan was calling Diana’s name again and wanted to search the garden, but I told him there was no point.

After nagging and pulling at him for a while, I managed to make him sit down at the kitchen table. Broken glass crunched under my feet when I fetched him a glass of water. He sat with his head in his hands.

‘Drink this.’

I pulled out a chair and sat down across from him.

‘I don’t know what happened.’

‘No, but you see, I do.’

‘What have I fucking done.’

‘It wasn’t you.’

‘Gudrun. What have I done.’

‘There was someone else in that room.’

‘We have to call the police, we have to look for her.’