Back then, when Karen had been unable to sleep at all without drinking herself into a coma, she wouldn’t doze off until dawn, on the sofa, with all the lights on. Eventually, she had felt ready to move back into her bedroom, so long as the ceiling light was on and all doors and windows were open. Under those conditions she had been able to close her eyes and fall asleep, so long as he or Sigrid stayed with her and kept guard against the dark. She would wake up in a cold sweat, panic in her eyes, every night and they would gently talk her back to reality. It’s better now, Leo reflects and slowly pushes the damp hair away from Karen’s forehead. Just me and the bedside lamp and the window cracked. And she’s asleep.

And something has happened to him, too. He’s no longer eyeing the nearest exit or keeping constant track of how small the room he’s in is, how close the walls seem to be. He no longer reacts – well, he doesn’t outright panic – when he hears the sound of a door closing behind him. Last week, he’d barely noticed how crowded the bar was down at Repet, and in the bathroom, he’d gone into a stall when there was no room at the urinal. Fine, so he hadn’t locked the door, but still.

Leo Friis knows exactly why the memory of the cupboard under the stairs has suddenly lost its power over him. It’s not because it’s been almost thirty years since his stepfather last locked him in there. Not because the bastard fell down the stairs and died two days later. Not because Leo had stood panting at the top of the steps, thinking it was finally over. He’d been wrong. The memory of the abuse had survived his stepfather’s fall. His fear of locked spaces had retained its iron grip on him. Until, suddenly, it had let go and slouched off into the background.

He’d known it the moment he stepped into the hospital room in Ravenby almost six weeks ago. Karl Björken had called and given a quick account of what had happened, told him Karen had been taken to the hospital in Ravenby.

‘She’s not badly injured, but she’s not doing well,’ he’d said. ‘Can you come?’

They had run to the car, driven in complete silence and much too fast. Out of breath after running up seven flights of stairs, and arriving just behind Sigrid, who had taken the lift, Leo had opened the door and seen Karen by the window, the back of her light blue hospital gown dark with sweat, the air in the room crackling with panic.

She’s more scared than I am, he’d thought.

*