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Now the consultant takes out three small glass bottles containing yellow powder, puts some water into each of the bottles, shakes them carefully, then draws the contents into a syringe.

He puts his earplugs in, then opens the small hatch in the door. There’s a clatter of metal and a heavy smell of concrete and dust hits them.

In a dispassionate voice the Senior Consultant tells Jurek Walter that it’s time for his injection.

The man lifts his chin and gets up softly from the chair, turns to look at the hatch in the door and unbuttons his shirt as he approaches.

‘Stop and take your shirt off,’ Roland Brolin says.

Jurek Walter carries on walking slowly forward and Roland quickly closes and bolts the hatch. Jurek stops, undoes the last buttons and lets his shirt fall to the floor.

His body looks as if it was once in good shape, but now his muscles are loose and his wrinkled skin is sagging.

Roland opens the hatch again. Jurek Walter walks the last little bit and holds out his sinewy arm, mottled with hundreds of different pigments.