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even come close to guessing what was wrong when Johannes had asked; the lad himself had suggested the groin, nudge nudge, wink wink. And his shoulder had got better of its own accord, if truth be told, not from Sonny’s hand which definitely didn’t have a higher temperature than the usual 37°C, was far colder in fact. But he was a good lad, he really was, and Johannes had no desire to disillusion him if he thought he had healing hands.
    So Johannes had kept it to himself, both his illness and his betrayal. But he knew that time was running out. That he couldn’t take this secret with him to the grave. Not if he wanted to rest in peace rather than the horror of waking up like a zombie, worm-eaten and trapped, doomed to eternal torment. He had no religious beliefs about who would be condemned to everlasting suffering or why, but he had been wrong about so many things in his life.
    ‘So many things . . .’ Johannes Halden muttered to himself.
    Then he put the mop aside, walked over to Sonny’s cell and knocked on the door. No reply. He knocked again.
    Waited.
    Then he opened the door.
    Sonny sat with a rubber strap tied around his forearm below the elbow, the end of the strap between his teeth. He held a syringe just above a bulging vein. The angle was the prescribed thirty degrees for optimum insertion.
    Sonny calmly looked up and smiled. ‘Yes?’
    ‘Sorry, I . . . it can wait.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Yes, it’s . . . there’s no hurry.’ Johannes laughed. ‘It can wait another hour.’
    ‘Can it wait four hours?’
    ‘Four hours is fine.’
    The old man saw the needle sink into the vein. The boy pressed the plunger. Silence and darkness seemed to fill the room like black water. Johannes withdrew quietly and closed the door.

6
    SIMON HAD HIS mobile pressed to his ear and his feet on the desk while he rocked back on the chair. It was an act the troika had perfected to such an extent that when they had challenged each other, the winner was whoever could be bothered to balance the longest.
    ‘So the American doctor didn’t want to give you his opinion?’ he said in a low voice, partly because he saw no reason to involve other members of the Homicide Squad in his personal life, and partly because this was how he and his wife always spoke on the phone. Softly, intimately. As if they were in bed, holding each other.
    ‘Oh, he does,’ Else said. ‘But not yet. He wants to look at the test results and the scans first. I’ll know more tomorrow.’
    ‘OK. How are you feeling?’
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘How fine?’
    She laughed. ‘Don’t worry so much, darling. I’ll see you at dinner.’
    ‘All right. Your sister, is she . . .?’
    ‘Yes, she’s still here and she’ll give me a lift home. Now stop fussing and hang up, you’re at work!’
    He ended the call reluctantly. Thought about his dream in which he gave her his sight.
    ‘Chief Inspector Kefas?’
    He looked up. And up. The woman standing in front of his desk was tall. Very tall. And skinny. Legs as thin of those of a daddy-long-legs stuck out from under a smart skirt.
    ‘I’m Kari Adel. I’ve been told to assist you. I tried to find you at the crime scene, but you disappeared.’
    And she was young. Very young. She looked more like an ambitious bank clerk than a police officer. Simon rocked the chair even further back. ‘What crime scene?’
    ‘Kuba.’
    ‘And how do you know it’s a crime scene?’
    He saw her shift her weight. Look for a way out. But there wasn’t one.
    ‘Possible crime scene,’ she then said.
    ‘And who says I need help?’
    She jerked her thumb behind her to indicate where the order had come from. ‘But I think I’m the one in need of help. I’m new here.’
    ‘Fresh out of training?’
    ‘Eighteen months with the Drug Squad.’
    ‘Fresh, then. And you’ve already made it to Homicide? Congratulations, Adel. You’re either really lucky, well connected or . . .’ He leaned back horizontally in the