‘I have to go now,’ Selma said softly but firmly.

She released Vanja’s grip and took a step back.

‘Phone me if you need me to come over.’

‘I need you to be here now.’

‘I can’t, Vanja. But I could come tomorrow. I’ll try. I promise. Now I have to go.’

She grabbed the bottle of sugar-free cola, snatched her coat from the peg in the hallway as she went past, and dashed for the door.

Fortunately she hadn’t taken off her high-heeled boots.

THE PRISONER

It was time to set him free.

It wouldn’t be easy, thought the man with the silver-grey hair. The actual abduction had gone surprisingly well. Inside the underground car park, there had been no CCTV cameras. It had been easy for him to disable the one mounted on the massive garage doors by cutting a cable ridiculously far down on the wall. His victim had been lost in his own thoughts as he strolled towards his car and hadn’t noticed a thing until he woke in the cell.

The greatest problem had been that he was heavy.

At least fourteen stone. Maybe a bit less now, since it seemed that he didn’t have much of an appetite. It was difficult to say, really: the view was restricted into the cell through the little hatch on the door.

The guy was tall and stout, at any rate.

Since he needed to be completely unconscious during the journey, it was no use depending on the scumbag’s own strength. He had to be knocked to the ground.

Not quite literally, of course. When he had picked the man up, he had used chloroform on a cloth. Like in a film from the fifties. Easy to procure, easy to use. And particularly effective, as he had discovered.

He had become giddy himself from the smell.

Now he would use GHB. Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid.

While the chloroform had been stored in a jar in the basement from the time when he had tried to suppress his uneasiness, anxiety and loneliness through an interest in entomology, the GHB was a bit more difficult to get hold of. But not as difficult as he had feared. The police were absolutely right.

There was a lot of GHB going the rounds.

A hosepipe was attached to the tap above the utility sink and led across the wall, fastened with staples all the way to the hole. It was exactly large enough, and snug enough to hold the end of the hose in its grip. He had turned on the tap once he had rolled the unconscious man on to the bunk ten days ago. Only a trickle. All he had now needed to do was to exchange the hosepipe for a different spout, a five-litre petrol can that now contained two litres of water. The GHB was still in the bottle he had put down on the sink yesterday. It had been tricky to calculate how much he should use, and he still wasn’t entirely sure. An addict’s dose was about the size of a screw cap. Two or three grams. The problem was getting the liquid into the prisoner. A dose sufficient to knock him out, but at the same time not large enough to kill him.