She’d grabbed one of the towels she kept in a box under the bed for when Ingvar wanted to have relations, folded it double and placed it over the clock radio to keep its blue digits from illuminating the room. She didn’t need to see the time to know she’d lain awake for hours.

It had been over twenty-four hours since she’d spoken to Ingvar, and it had been the worst twenty-four hours of her life. Not even losing her father in that tragic accident at the summer house had made her feel this bad.

Suddenly, one puzzle piece after another had fallen into place. All the late nights he’d been gone and blamed work, even though there was no ongoing investigation. His yo-yoing mood. His fits of fury. Not to mention Hugo Elvin and all the intrusive and insinuating questions he’d asked whenever he got the chance. Questions she now acknowledged hadn’t been the unfortunate by-products of too much alcohol.

She hadn’t got food poisoning from that classic Berlin café. Ingvar had drugged her. Then he’d sedated her in their hotel room. Her own husband. She couldn’t believe it, but it was the only logical explanation. It was the alibi he’d been after, not celebrating their anniversary. The same alibi his colleague Fabian had come around asking about in his investigation into the murder of Reidar’s wife, Inga. An investigation that had been reopened without her husband’s knowledge.

The whole thing had thrown open the door to a darkness so abysmally deep, she’d lingered in the kitchen, drawing out the cleaning process, for over an hour. That was where she usually felt safe. In the kitchen. It was her domain, unlike the bedroom, which for some reason had always belonged to him. Even though she was the one who spent the most time in it, reading and listening to the radio.

When Ingvar stepped over the bedroom threshold, she always hoped she’d be asleep enough for him to leave her alone. He mostly did, and over the years, she’d become better at pretending. But this time, it felt impossible to relax into that calm breathing, even though she was bone-weary after two sleepless nights.

She’d spent the day cleaning the house from top to bottom, even though it had only been three days since she last went over it. She’d washed and ironed the curtains in the living room, dusted her collection of crystal owls and reorganized the kitchen. It had been one pointless activity after another in a desperate bid to come up with a plan of action. Should she contact the police and have him arrested, or should she simply leave him and try to get as far away as possible?