He moaned beneath his breath: Not again.

It always started with the sweating, followed by this smell of charred tissue. Then a sudden sense of utter exhaustion, and finally that indescribable pain. As if the particles of air were turning to needles and piercing him all over. A prickling pain that spread like goose bumps over his skin until he wanted to scream. Sometimes a white mist clouded his vision and he could actually see the air particles turning into needles.

Calm down, he told himself. Relax, you’re all right, you’ve already made up your mind you’ll never stab her. Everything’s going to be all right.

Gripping the ice pick lightly to minimise trembling, he placed the point of it next to the baby’s cheek. Every time he studied this instrument, with its slender, gleaming steel rod that tapered down to such needle-like sharpness, he wondered why it was necessary to have things like this in the world. If it were truly only for chopping ice, you’d think a completely different design might do. The people who produce and sell things like this don’t understand, he thought. They don’t realise that some of us break out in a cold sweat at just a glimpse of that shiny, pointed tip.

The baby’s lips moved almost imperceptibly. Lips so small they didn’t even look like lips. More like larvae, or a chrysalis that might unfold into an insect with beautiful wings. Vanishingly tiny red blood vessels coloured the skin of her cheeks beneath the peachfuzz. Kawashima stroked the surface of that fine layer of fuzz, first with a fingertip and then with the tip of the instrument.

It really is all right, I’m not going to stab the baby.

Just as he was thinking this, Yoko’s soft voice shattered the silence.

‘What’re you doing?’