He hadn’t wanted to hit her. He hated fighting. But she’d clawed and screamed, she had, so loudly his ears hurt. He hadn’t meant to hit her so hard. He never did and yet that’s almost always how it turned out.

The wristwatch Igor had given him had struck her temple so hard she was still unconscious. It was the watch’s fault. Not his. He liked children and preferred to play with them when they were awake.

He took out the plastic bowl and emptied one of the water bottles into it. Then he opened the front pocket of his back­pack and coaxed out the pump of the liquid soap dispenser.

Lavender, the best smell in the world. Nothing smelled better; the fragrant lather in the bowl immediately made him feel calmer as he carefully and methodically washed his hands, one finger at a time, one nail at a time. He wanted to be clean, as clean as possible. She was, after all, a virgin, and there was nothing purer than that.

He’d always thought so. But he’d never told anyone. It was his little secret. Ever since that time at the pool, he’d resisted, he’d been good. Really good, as several people had told him; he had pretended to agree with all of them about how wrong and forbidden his particular desire was. As though desire could be wrong. As though it was so much worse than the desire to eat meat or travel to the other side of the world on your holiday.

But nothing mattered any more. The voices had finally told him to stop pretending. They had told him what he’d always felt deep down inside. But they had sounded different this time; they had talked slower than usual and almost never over each other. But they’d been on his side, they had, unlike all the babbling psychologists.

She was his, they’d told him. His, his, his. The only reason she’d been born was so she could please him, and once it was done, she was spent like when the most precious flower is picked from the meadow and wilts in its vase.

He’d hurried as far from the playground as he could. Away from all the stupid people who wanted to take what was his. But the trees in the park, or maybe it was all the gravel walks, had made him confused again, and soon everything had been spinning and swapping places.

It was only when he mustered the courage to stop and raise his eyes that he’d spotted Kärnan, looming above everything else. Then he’d finally realized where he was. Oh, how he loved that old tower that made everything stop spinning.

He undid his belt, pulled down his zip, then his trousers and his underwear.