He plugged the bathtub drain and turned the tap on and then sat down on the toilet seat, contemplating the water as it rose. The little boy probably wondered what the rushing sound was, because he appeared outside the door and stood there on all fours, staring. Lennart signalled with a nod that he was welcome to come in, but he didn’t seem to understand. He just stared at the tap and the water rushing out of it.

When the water was four inches from the edge, Lennart turned it off. For a long while he sat motionless, looking at the tub.

The little boy stood up, leaning on the bed with his chubby arms. His knees buckled. He opened his mouth wide and the unhealed wound on his cheek gaped like an extra mouth, deformed and ugly. Lennart picked him up and carried him into the harsh light of the bathroom. The sight of the bath seemed to make the little boy happy, because he gurgled out sounds that were probably meant to approximate words.

He lowered the boy into the water and watched his eyes grow wide under the surface. His arms and legs flailed. Lennart’s big, aged hand spread out across the child’s ribcage like a murderous starfish.

‘It’s better this way,’ he mumbled, ‘drowning’s not so bad.’

A stream of pearls rushed out of his open mouth. The little boy’s scrotum was big and blueish and his penis, which was waggling up and down, looked like some kind of caterpillar with an exotic way of moving.

‘Soon you’ll sleep. It’s almost over.’

At that point, he realised the sock with its duct-tape cuff had come off. It bobbed around the choppy water like a little boat. Lennart stared at the hand the sock had concealed. One second passed. Two seconds. Then he grabbed hold of the boy’s arm and pulled him up.

The child lay on the tiles, coughing and gagging with his eyes squeezed shut. His face was darker than the rest of his plump body, which glistened with water. Lennart backed up against the door without taking his eyes off the hand that had been hidden.

It looked like the other hand. Pink and soft and perfectly formed like a doll’s. The nails were longer, but there was nothing wrong with them, they just hadn’t been trimmed.

Here it came. The little boy had rolled over on his side and he was crying. Not with terrible force like a baby, but quietly and inwardly.