The flat was silent.

She hadn’t thought of him for a long time, or indeed of anything that belonged to that time back then. And now she was sitting there thinking about it. She thought about that last hug in the Lukuskele prison ward when she was ten years old and he had looked so small and coughed so his whole body rattled and Mum had given him a tissue, which filled with blood clots before he scrunched it up and put it in one of the big bins in the corridor.

It was the last time, but she hadn’t realised it then. Perhaps she still hadn’t taken it in.

Lydia took a deep breath.

She shook off the feeling of sadness, smiled at the large mirror in the hall. It was still early in the morning.

A knock on the door. She still had the hairbrush in her hand. How long had she been standing there? She glanced in the mirror again, her head a little to the side. Another smile, she wanted to look good. She was wearing the black dress; the dark material contrasted with her pale skin. She looked at her body. It was still a young woman’s. She hadn’t changed much since she came here, not on the outside.