Nowadays she saw right into his world, and he into hers. The injured and dying and sometimes even the dead came from his world into hers, and he would follow them, and then everybody would move back and forth between the two worlds, just like Bertil earlier that day, who’d bumped into Angela when he’d been trying to extract some words from a battered body that Angela was simultaneously trying to heal. Fucking hell. He drank the remains of his red wine. She poured some water into his glass. The radio was mumbling away on the counter. It was almost night.

“They seem to be in a bind at the nursery school,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Lots of children and not many staff.”

“More and more of one, and fewer and fewer of the other.”

“Yes.”

“Is there something in particular that made you think of that just now?”

“Well, this morning I suppose, when I dropped off Elsa. They didn’t seem to be able to keep an eye on all the children.”

“Is that the police officer in you talking?”

“If it is, doesn’t that make it all the more important? All the more serious? The police officer in me sees the shortcomings in the security.”

“Shortcomings in the security? You sound like you’re responsible for President Bush’s safety.”

“Bush? He can look after himself. It’s those around him that need protecting.”

“You know what I mean.”

“And what I mean is that you can’t risk a child wandering off. There was a little boy who ran through a gap in a hedge and would have disappeared if it hadn’t been for the fence on the other side.”

“But Erik, that’s why the fence is there. So that the children can’t get out. Can’t disappear.”

“But nobody noticed him wandering off through the bushes.”

“They don’t need to worry about that. The staff knows there’s a fence on the other side.”