But he recognized his surroundings, he did. Because that was that sculpture with the red spinning wheel. It usually spun as well. At least it had when he was little. Now it wasn’t moving. Stupid sculpture. If not for that old git staring at him, he would have walked up to it and pissed on it.

He wanted to go home but was afraid to. The police were probably there, rummaging around, and Igor would get angry and think it was him. Everything was so hard. And he didn’t want to go back to the secure ward. They would just force him into that jacket and lock him up. And he needed to pee, so badly he almost couldn’t hold it any longer.

He got up from the bench, left the small square and continued into an alley he recognized but couldn’t place. There were trees there, and trees need to be watered. He hurried over to one of them, unzipped his trousers and dug it out before finally being able to relieve the pressure.

He’d been here before, lots of times. Right, to play arcade games. That was it. They’d had that black-and-white space game Asteroids, and once he’d scored a thousand points and got an extra ship. His brother had played for hours on end with just one krona, with so many extra ships they didn’t even fit on the screen.

Igor. Oh, he missed Igor so badly, even though he was mean sometimes. But he would never hand him over to the police. He was sure of that.

He had tried to call him lots of times, but his stupid phone refused to light up and he’d come close to smashing it on the ground. He knew it just needed charging, but he couldn’t help thinking it was being mean. Why couldn’t it just be on his side? He hadn’t really used it that much.

Some idiot behind him was shouting that he was disgusting and should be ashamed of himself. As soon as he was done peeing, he was going to shut that loudmouth up with his stabby knife. But by then, the idiot was gone, go figure. Typical, but maybe just as well. What he needed was a charger. A charger, so he could call Igor.

Then he suddenly spotted himself.

Like a blurred echo from a time when he had more hair and had been on that medication that made him fat.

KNOWN PAEDOPHILE BEHIND THE LAUNDRY ROOM MURDER!

But that was him in the picture. It was. Was that why that old man had been staring at him?

Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? Now he had to run again, and he didn’t like running. It hurt his knees and made him all winded.