‘In my world, we don’t ask stupid questions. “Did she like it rough?”’ The woman shook her head as a short man with a beard and glasses came over with a homemade DVD.

‘Would you mind running this in the video room?’

‘Of course not, consider it done.’ She took the disc out of the case, labelled CREAM #23, and inserted it into one of the players. ‘So you and Sivan have been at it again, have you?’

The man lit up but didn’t answer and then he disappeared.

‘In your world, on the other hand,’ she continued. ‘There, a place like this is all about being deviants and getting off on, like, golden showers and strangulation.’

‘If you wouldn’t mind answering my questions instead of rating them,’ Fabian said, spotting the two obese couples from the sauna entering through the red door. ‘Then this would’ve taken no longer than a few minutes and you could have gone back to serving fizzy drinks and I could have gone home to my family, 4,850 kronor poorer.’

‘Fine.’ She met his eyes. ‘If you ask me, she was completely normal. Just like you and everyone else here, she was interested in sex. Just like you, she did nothing her first time here, and when she came back, it was, as it so often is, very cautious and vanilla. But as time went by, she agreed to try all kinds of things. Just like you will.’

‘Was she with different people, men and women, or always with the same ones?’

‘She went with different people, men and women, just like it will be for—’

‘Let’s stick to Molly. Do you know if she ever thought things had gone too far, if she was afraid of anyone?’

‘No, who would that be? One of the rules is that no one has to do anything they don’t want to.’

‘Never heard of people breaking rules?’

‘Maybe out in your world. Not here.’ She put out a sign that read Serve yourself on the counter. ‘Are we done? Because I have guests waiting.’

Fabian turned around and saw a group of seven or eight people of different ages and in various states of undress waiting behind him. She was probably right. Not just about how safe this environment was compared to the world outside, but also about how it was probably his narrow-minded view of sex that had read too much into Wessman being a member of a swingers’ club. Even so, he leaned over the counter and grabbed a pen.

‘Just one last thing,’ he said as he drew a line across a napkin and added a perpendicular arrow. ‘You wouldn’t happen to recognize this tattoo, would you?’ He added the two-digit number under the line and handed her the napkin.