There would undoubtedly be several hours before she would emerge from her drugged mist, and it was just as likely that she would reach out for the box of tablets on the bedside table and go back to sleep instead of getting up. With one finger he steered a stray lock of hair from her face and let it rest behind her ear. She did not stir, but muttered something unintelligible, and a thin bead of saliva leaked from her mouth into the pillow.

Ingimar stood up and went to his own bathroom, which had originally been a guest bathroom, until they had started to sleep separately. There had been no decision to sleep in different rooms, but he had not been able to sleep next to her when she was so heavily drugged. It seemed as if her complete immobility woke him repeatedly during the night, and every time, when he saw that she had not moved at all, he was struck by a deep discomfort. Before he could go back to sleep, he felt he had to put an ear to her mouth to be sure that she was still breathing. This feeling of unease ultimately became something he could no longer tolerate.

One night he had moved to the divan in the guest bedroom and had slept like a log, as if her shallow breaths in the next room were no longer any business of his. Within a few weeks the divan had been replaced by a bed. So the guest bedroom had become his bedroom, and the guest bathroom had become his personal space. Not that it mattered, as they no longer ever had guests.

He went downstairs, switched on the coffee machine and then made cocoa for Anton, carried it upstairs and sat by his bedside until he began to stir. Since he had entered his teens the boy seemed able to sleep around the clock. Ingimar had never needed much sleep; all his life he had been a morning person, awake and active. But people are different. He reflected that at Anton’s age, he had already been a fisherman.

Once Anton was sitting up in bed, Ingimar went to the bathroom and turned the shower on, lathering his face with shaving soap as the hot water began to run. As always, he shaved as he stood under the flow of water. The skin on his back stung under the heat of the water, so he finished with a blast of water so cold it made him gasp.

He dressed and said goodbye to Anton, then went into the kitchen and poured coffee into a paper cup to take with him. He put on his overcoat and looped his scarf around his neck, closing the door behind him on his way out. There was something special about taking a breath of the fresh outdoor air, and for a moment he felt as if he had surfaced from a long dive underwater, lungs thirsty for oxygen. He felt a new lightness now that he was out under the open sky.