Now he could hear footsteps on the gravel. Micke and that French scientist were walking his way. Close together and silent like two fucking monks in a monastery, they passed him. He followed them. The Frenchman whispered something to Micke but Micke didn’t turn around. They didn’t hold the front door open for him and were probably hoping he wouldn’t follow them into the laboratory building. But he did. When he entered, they had made it into the post room. He watched them through the open door and at length, the Frenchman looked up.

‘Hello,’ he said timidly.

The post was sorted into pigeonholes with names above each one, and this was the honeycomb wall Micke was staring at. As though he had forgotten which pigeonhole was his. The charade was so ridiculous Anders had to chuckle.

In the middle of the day, like now, the hallway was quiet and where doors had been left open, broad swaths of sunlight swept across the floor. The door to his room was open too; he didn’t like that. He had a clear memory of locking it.

The map, the big picture of Bergslagen with all its wolf territories drawn in, with which he had covered the wall by fitting together four topographical maps to the scale of 1:50,000, was gone and the sight of the bare wall, dotted by drawing pins, under which torn paper fragments were still stuck, made his eyes well up.

He leaned against the desk and tried to collect himself. He was aware he had rubbed people at the institute the wrong way since he came back from sick leave, but that things would escalate to the point where someone broke into his room to destroy his things, that was unexpected. This was proper harassment. Bullying.

He collapsed into his chair and looked out the window. Smooth, freshly mowed lawns. A sliver of Lake Bysjön glittering between the birch trees in the cow pasture. The view had a calming effect on him.

How many times had Johanna told him that he had gone back to work much too soon after the accident? This was proof she was right. He was crying in his office, and it wasn’t the first time either. But he remained firm in his conviction that work was the best cure. Work and routines.

He nudged the mouse and his computer screen sprang to life. Without turning away from the window, he reached out and typed in his password with his index finger. But he wasn’t logged on. Instead a notice popped up. He rolled closer to the computer and pushed each key with myopic meticulousness. The same notice. A red cross of rejection. And it was only then he noticed what had happened to his screen. The Post-it notes usually stuck to it like a wreath were gone.