She heard the people she passed talking about her. Such loud voices, and it was scary, the way they knew everything, all her secrets. They talked and talked, but soon they’d stop and go away, at least for a few minutes.

Mirja was in a hurry now, sat down on the seat nearest the gate, slipped her bag from her shoulder, took out a Coke bottle half filled with water, held it in one hand and a syringe in the other. She drew the water up into the syringe and then squirted it into the plastic bag.

She was crazy for it; she had waited for so long. She didn’t notice that the contents in the bag foamed a little.

Smiling, she drew up the solution, put the needle in place and held it still for a moment.

She had done this so many times before – the tie round the arm, find a vein, pull back blood into the syringe, shoot up.

The pain was instant.

She stood up quickly, cried out but her voice didn’t carry. She tried to pull back what she had already injected. The vein had swollen up already, an almost centimetre-high ridge running from wrist to elbow.

Then the pain passed and her skin went black, as the washing powder had corroded the blood vessel.

TUESDAY 4 JUNE

Jochum Lang was not asleep. The last night was always the worst.

It was the smell. When the key turned in the lock for the last time, it always hit him: the small cells all smelt the same. It didn’t matter which prison it was, even in the police cells, the walls and the bed and the cupboard and the table and the white ceiling smelt the same.

He sat on the edge of the bed and lit a fag. Even the air pressure in the cells felt the same. That sounded plain fucking stupid and he couldn’t tell anyone, but it was the truth that every cell in every prison and every jail had the same air pressure and it wasn’t like in any other room.