‘Oh come on, Håkan, don’t be an idiot! Do you think it matters? That’s like saying a person who gets hit by a car had nothing to do with the car. She was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Then where are they, what did he do to them?’

‘I don’t know.’

He rubbed his face with his hand.

‘If we’re not calling the police, what are we going to do?’

‘We’re going home.’

‘But we can’t just leave him there. Or can we?’

I was quiet for a moment before answering.

‘No, I suppose we can’t.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘I think we’re going to have to try to get rid of him.’

‘How?’

‘Let’s see if there’s a shovel in the henhouse.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘I’m exactly as serious as the situation requires.’

‘I’m not burying anyone.’

‘I’m trying to help you, Håkan. I didn’t kill a man, you did. You’re the one who strangled him, I just watched. Remember that. If we’re looking at it from a legal point of view. The easiest and best thing for me would be to call the police. But I don’t want to do that. I want to help you. And I want to find the girls.’

‘Me too.’

‘So let’s bury him.’

‘I can’t.’

‘We’ll bury him and then we’ll never speak of this again. We bury him and then we shake on never speaking of it, with another living soul, for as long as we live, and not afterwards either. And that means not speaking about it to each other as well. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

He nodded.

‘It never happened.’

‘Okay.’

‘Is that a deal?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then say it.’

‘It never happened.’

‘Then let’s shake on it.’

Abraham had stopped at the top of the ridge…

Abraham had stopped at the top of the ridge and Lennart panted his way up the last stretch to see what he was looking at.

A tent. A small, blue dome tent, no more than fifty feet from the entrance to the bunker. They looked at it in silence.

‘How hungry do you reckon he is?’ Abraham said.

Lennart turned around and motioned to Susso to head back down again; on the way down the slope, Abraham informed him there was another entrance, one that wasn’t visible from the tent. It was sealed, but the rocks were reasonably loose and should be movable.

‘This way,’ he said, pointing as he jogged along a bank of excavated rock. Below the bank was a long, narrow ditch they climbed into. Further on, this trench turned into a tunnel. A gaping hole straight into the netherworld. Abraham stopped and was evidently not about to go any closer.