She went into the room that had been her bedroom and saw that it looked exactly like when she left it to go to the office. She’d tried to act normally there. She’d hidden her shorn fringe under a wide headband and after a few minutes’ practice in front of the bathroom mirror, she’d been able to squeeze out a tolerably natural-looking smile.

But it had been like walking around in a bubble in which her paranoid thoughts bounced back and forth, drowning out all other sounds.

She had seen guilty people everywhere. Janne in IT, who undoubtedly knew how to hack into a phone. Anders who had been fired, but who still had a month left of his notice period. Not to mention all the people who had already been let go. At every turn, she had been greeted by false smiles, searching eyes and insinuating questions about how she was feeling.

Panic had crept nearer and nearer and peaked in the middle of her presentation to the board. Suddenly, she’d been unable to get a word out, had just stood there in silence, watching everyone’s confused looks. In that moment, she’d felt convinced the perpetrator was there among the sea of suits and ties. Someone who despite all the cutbacks was unhappy with the numbers and wanted her gone at any cost.

You could have cut the silence with a knife before she finally regained her ability to speak and finished her presentation. After that, she had cancelled the rest of her meetings, left the office and gone straight to the police to file a report.

Unfortunately, they hadn’t taken her seriously. Instead, they had forced her to give a urine sample and implied that she must have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs and had simply forgotten bringing a visitor home.

But she had insisted and told them about the people at her work who might hold a grudge on account of the restructure. About how certain members of the board had always been against her. About the old man working the tills at her local supermarket who always undressed her with his eyes and insisted on rolling out his mat right next to hers at yoga practice.

They hadn’t listened, though, and in the end, she had got up and left the police station without another word. She hadn’t even got to telling them about all the people she met at the clubs she liked to frequent.

And somewhere on her way out of the police station, it had dawned on her that checking in to a hotel, staying over at the office or forcing herself on some distant acquaintance wouldn’t make any difference. Because no matter how much she wished to, this wasn’t something she could run away from, since the perpetrator could be just about anyone.

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