She waited till the chills in her spine had eased, turned on the hot water and splashed her face with soapy water. As she brushed her teeth, she examined her stomach, shoulders, neck, and hands. “Hands of the Virgin Mary,” Andrei liked saying, but it was not true. Sweaty palms in latex, carrying the child along winter streets, cleaning, fixing. Her hands had grown cold, sheathed with a crust of ice that was invisible to the eye.

No shaking that damn suicide from my mind. That lard-arse investigator is probably right: who cares?

Maria spat out the toothpaste, rinsed, and beamed at the mirror. At least her teeth were pristine. Forensics will have to sweat working out her age.

She stepped over the side of the bathtub and turned on the shower. Hot water flowed over her body, peeling away the sleep and cold. Maria lathered and scrubbed herself. Her hands dropped between her legs, and she closed her eyes. Fryderyk entered the bathroom and surveyed her with his gelid stare. He took off his clothes.

Pleasure, extraordinary pleasure. Maria threw her head back, remembering and feeling those dark rooms, the music, the embraces. He was in front of her, he gripped her wrist.

Maria groaned, arched her back, and pressed her buttocks and the back of her head against the cold wall. Her body trembled. The water suddenly felt too hot. Rainbow motes floated in the space beneath her eyelids.

The next spasms were unpleasant and painful. As though something had spilled and flowed out of her body: a black, ugly shame. Maria turned off the tap and hastened out of the bathtub. She dried herself off with a white towel and rubbed the misted mirror. No shadow of the ugliness lurking inside. She put on a robe and went to get ready for the night shift.

How to endure another night of work?

Leaving the flat, she didn’t bother checking the letterbox. She sensed there would be no envelope.

There had been no envelopes for two weeks, and that was, to put it mildly, maddening. Maria was battling allergies, a tugging muscular pain, and her period had come late and ended early. She signed up for yoga, then gave up yoga; she wore black; she started calling her mother before bed; she made Andrei book a trip to Sicily for Christmas and then cancel it. The house was in an unusual state of disorder. Like a ship in a storm, Maria was tossed from side to side. She fretted, craved attention, picked fights; she felt it was impossible to slow down, because that would mean thinking, thinking, thinking. And that was not an option. Otherwise, the insomnia.

Before going home after the night shift, she dropped by the ironmonger’s shop to buy paint. White with a slight tinge of beige. At the flat, she dragged things out of the hallway, taped the baseboards and floor with plastic sheeting and newspapers to the doors.