He felt tired.

‘I’ll nail that bastard.’

Bengt put his arm round his shoulder. Ewert pulled back. He wasn’t used to it.

‘Ewert, let it go.’

It wasn’t long since he had held her hand; she had laughed like a child. Her hand had been cool, limp. Absent. And he remembered what it had once been like, warm and firm and very much present.

‘From today he’ll be walking the streets. Don’t you understand? Lang is walking, laughing.’

‘But Ewert, whose fault was it? Was it Lang’s? Or mine? I couldn’t hold on to her. Maybe it’s me you should hate. Maybe it’s me you should nail.’

The wind was back, catching the rain and whipping it into their faces. The terrace door opened behind them. A woman came out holding an umbrella and smiling, her long hair tied back.

‘What are you two doing there? You’re crazy!’

They turned round and Bengt smiled back.

‘Once you’re wet, it doesn’t matter any more.’

‘Well, I want you indoors. Breakfast time.’

‘What, now?’

‘Now, Bengt. The kids are hungry.’

They got up. Their clothes stuck to their skin.

Ewert looked up at the sky again and it was just as grey as before.

It was still only morning; she could hear the birds outside singing to each other, as they always did. Lydia sat on the edge of the bed and listened. It was so nice; they sang just like the birds around the ugly concrete blocks of flats in Klaipeda. She didn’t know why, but she had woken several times last night, always after the same dream about her and her mum’s trip to Vilnius and the Lukuskele prison, so many years ago.

In the dream her father was standing in the dark corridor of the tuberculosis ward, waving goodbye to her as she walked away, past the room called the HIV ward with its fifteen beds occupied by slowly decaying inmates. Then, from a distance, she turned to look back at him and saw him collapse.