Sometimes, he’d done things just to make them shut up.

‘You know she’s going to die.’

The people in the ward had only themselves to blame.

‘That it’s the right thing.’

After all, they were the ones who insisted on letting him out every time. Not him.

‘You know what to do.’

So, in a way, the voices were in fact on to something.

‘And you do like children, don’t you.’

His right.

‘No one likes children as much as you.’

His goddamn right.

50

Tonight 4pm – 2am. Mixed. Odengatan 10, entrance on Heimdalsgatan. Welcome.

The text had been sent from a withheld number just over half an hour after he’d left his name and number on the answering machine. At that point it had already been half four, which was why he’d gone straight from Wessman’s flat, in the hopes of there not being too many guests yet. But as soon as he turned on to Heimdalsgatan in Glumslöv, he realized that had been wishful thinking.

A long row of cars and motorcycles were parked along the side of the road, in the tall grass. There was even a tractor and a couple of bikes with helmets dangling off their handlebars. Apparently, people were eager to get inside and get naked. He parked his car a few hundred feet further down the street and walked back. The last thing he wanted was to be boxed in and having to ask people to move their cars when they were in the middle of God knew what.

He squeezed through the gap between two cars and continued in through an opening in the ramshackle, overgrown fence. The reason they’d put the entrance in the back was probably the neighbours, who had no doubt done everything they could to get rid of the club, though things did seem surprisingly quiet. The idea of anything wilder than a dinner party and possibly a round of bridge going on inside felt like utter science fiction.

A well-trodden path led up to a grey door at the back of the house. A brass sign announced that he’d found Spades. He opened the door and stepped into the darkness beyond.

This was his first time at a swingers’ club. Like most people, he’d toyed with the idea, and on one or two occasions he’d seriously considered whether it wasn’t exactly what Sonja and he needed to kickstart their sex life after the baby years.

But he’d never gone so far as to mention the idea to Sonja. Mostly because he’d been convinced she would explode and accuse him of being distasteful and revolting and say that his pathetic midlife crisis wasn’t her problem. What’s more, he had no idea how he would react to seeing her with other people.