He did a fifth jump; now it felt like the easiest thing in the world. It was just like with the extra mission. When he first saw the X, he was anxious, and when he rolled his way to page 28 of the notebook, he’d been convinced this was most likely going to be his last mission. Now, on the other hand, he was convinced it was going to come off brilliantly.

He’d even almost forgotten he was wearing the mask. If not for the sweat trickling down the inside of it, he wouldn’t have given it a thought. That’s how well it fitted him.

He’d ordered it from the US the moment he’d finished writing his 120 additional missions. Almost a thousand dollars it had cost him, and even though he’d splurged on express delivery, it had taken five weeks to get to him.

But it was a perfect fit, and as best he could tell, it seemed to work just fine out in public. This was his first time wearing it outside his flat.

Most people had passed him without reacting. As if they hadn’t noticed him at all. A few had looked twice, as though they couldn’t quite put their finger on what was off. Others had gone so far as to turn and look. Then he’d tempted fate by strolling down the pedestrianized stretch of Kullagatan on a late Saturday morning.

The mask was hot, though. He took it off, wiped the inside clean with a towel and put it in his backpack before jumping on his bike and pedalling off towards Hyllinge.

33

It was a completely electronics-free process. No ones and zeros. No driver routines, cables or memory cards. Just the pure chemistry of the hydroquinone spreading through the cassette and coming into contact with the film roll’s layer of gelatine, where it began to convert the silver halides that had been exposed to light to metallic silver. A process that rendered a darker negative the longer it was allowed to go on.

Developing analogue film required both skill and experience. The developer had to be able to perform steps such as pulling the film out of its cassette and loading it on to the reel blindfold, from muscle memory, since those things had to be done either inside a changing bag or in complete darkness.

He had found the rolls of film in a locked compartment in one of the lockers at the Celluloid photography club. Once upon a time, the locker had belonged to Einar Stenson; he had managed to open the compartment with one of the keys from Hugo Elvin’s drawer. It was the smallest of the three marked with green tape and a question mark.

Six rolls of film, each with twenty-four pictures that had to be developed. All black-and-white but of varying graininess and ISO values, which required different developing times and developer concentration.