An hour and a half later, Maria was out on the street again. Despite the cold she didn’t put her hat back on. The chill air nipped at her newly exposed ears and every now and then she would stop and look at her reflection in a shop window. Her hair was now a very dark brown, not quite as dark as Anna’s and not quite as spiky-short, but it changed her appearance considerably.

The cosmetics assistant in the department store on Hohe Strasse was a little puzzled as to why her customer seemed so unsure about what went with her colouring, but a few minutes later Maria, who had always been conservative with her make-up, had a bag full of strong colours in eyeshadow, blusher and lipstick. The next store she went to, she described exactly the make-up she had just bought and claimed that she’d been wearing those shades for years and she wanted something completely different.

Before she found the next shop, she had to stop a couple of times to take the page she had torn from the telephone directory from her pocket and check the address against her street plan of Cologne. It was about lunchtime and, although her belly felt swollen to her from her unaccustomed breakfasting, she had a light lunch of soup and bread in the restaurant across the street. Maria now felt totally bloated and imagined her stomach distended, but she fought back the urge to make herself sick. It was all part of the plan.

It was a middle-aged and clearly gay man who took her through the selection of wigs. Maria told him that she was an actress and was always looking for something to change her look. It was clear that the salesman had doubts about her story, but she explained that she often had to supply her own wigs and costumes. It was, she explained, a very specific form of acting she did, mainly for the DVD market. The salesman smiled knowingly, and took her through a range of styles, short and long, brunette, blonde and redhead. Maria bought five wigs, which delighted the salesman, although she was horrified at the cost.

‘We could always put one back …’ suggested the salesman tentatively.

‘No … it’s fine. I’ll take them all.’

Maria called into another couple of clothes stores on her way to the hotel and arrived back in her room laden with shopping bags. She drew the curtains and stripped naked, standing with all the lights on in front of the mirror. She had been dreading this moment, knowing that after eating two meals in one day for the first time in months she would see how hideously bloated and fat she would have become. But she didn’t. For so long Maria had been used to regarding her naked form with loathing, seeing the flesh swollen and fat. But not this time. It was as if her decision to become someone else had shifted her perspective and she was looking at someone else’s body. So much damage. Maria had always been shapely, but slim. Now, after months of binging, purging and weeks of semi-starvation, Maria’s body looked emaciated. Her ribs showed through the skin and her thighs seemed thinner than her knees. Her upper arms were stick-thin and the knife scar beneath her shrunken breasts contrasted pink against her pale, lifeless skin. Her face, beneath its new crown of near-black, short-cropped hair, looked gaunt and drawn. What had she done to herself?