‘Turn the light off!’ said Lydia. The lights went out, first the big chandelier on the ceiling, then the little bedside lamp.

We lay quite still. There was a faint glimmer at the window. Billie’s heart was pounding, she breathed heavily, at my side the Princess didn’t move. A scent rose up from the women’s hair, and mixed with another, subtler one, perhaps the flowers or the perfume. Gently Billie’s hand released mine.

‘Go,’ said the Princess almost inaudibly.

Then I stood next door in Billie’s room, staring in front of me. Cock-a-doodle-doo – it went inside me, but soon stopped, and a strong feeling of tenderness wafted back towards them. I lay down.

Were they talking? I couldn’t hear them. I got up again and crawled under the shower. A sweet tiredness came over me – and an almost irresistible urge to go to them and put roses . . . but where can you get hold of roses at night . . . what folly. Someone was at the door.

‘You can say good night!’ said the Princess. I went in.

Billie looked at me with a smile; it was a clean smile. The Princess lay beside her, so quiet. I went up to each of them, and kissed them both softly on the lips. ‘Good night . . .’ and ‘Good night . . .’ The trees rustled loudly outside. For a second I stopped by the bed.

‘How did all that come about so suddenly?’ asked the Princess quietly.

Chapter Five

That was some throw! said Hans –

and he threw his wife out of the window

1

It was a day such as you usually get only at the end of summer: bright, heavy and windless. We lay on the shore by the lake.

A few yards away, a boat was bobbing around, our bathing-boat – the water gurgled quietly against the wood, up and down, up and down . . . If you put your hand in the water, you felt a tiny shock of cold, then you took it out again, and the droplets dried in the air. I sucked on a blade of grass. The Princess had her eyes closed.

‘Today is the day before yesterday,’ she said. That was how she calculated time, seeing as we were leaving the day after next, then today was the day before yesterday.

‘Where do you suppose she is now?’ I asked. The Princess looked at her watch. ‘She’s between Malmö and Trälleborg now,’ she said, ‘in an hour she’ll be boarding the ferry.’ Then we were silent again. Billie – I thought – Billie . . .

She had gone – quiet, happy, cheerful – and nothing had happened, nothing had happened. I was glad; it had cast no shadow. Thank God. I looked over to the Princess. She must have felt it; she opened her eyes.

‘What’s with Frau Collin? She’s not natural. What sort of egg did she hatch from? The cat must have laid it!’