Karen considers it. She trusts Karl implicitly; he would never betray her confidence. At the same time, she realises he would be the second unauthorised person she tells. Granted, Marike had seemed uninterested in the fact that the annoying woman Karen had met at KGB Productions was the internationally famous singer Luna John. And she has no idea Luna is now nowhere to be found.

The couple next to them seem oblivious to anything but their dog and the menus, but the waiter is now moving their way with yet another heavy tray.

No, she shouldn’t say anything. Not a word. At least not out loud.

So she picks up her fork, quickly scratches down four letters on a paper napkin and pushes it over to Karl.

He briefly looks at the uneven letters and then tucks the napkin into his shirt, just as two brimming plates are set down in front of them. The crispy, deep-fried little fishes are steaming, the lemon wedges gleam in the sunlight and the bowl of fragrant wild garlic butter is bright green.

They eat in silence.

‘All right, then,’ Karl says eventually. ‘What does Smeed have to say about it?’

‘He wants me to look into what might have happened, discreetly and unassisted. Keep it “under the radar”, as he put it. But sooner or later, we have to go all in; it’s been over forty-eight hours now. The magical seventy-two hours are almost up and—’

‘—then we have to let people know she’s missing, whether we want to or not,’ Karl Björken finishes her sentence. ‘The press is going to go wild. Even I know who—’

He grins when Karen warningly opens her mouth.

‘—she is. Well, I for one wouldn’t mind,’ he adds. ‘It would take the heat off my investigation.’

‘You’re delusional. How long do you think it will take the press to start speculating about a connection? That she might have fallen victim to the Moerbeck Swine?’

The couple with the dog has paid their bill and are standing up to leave. Two women in their twenties have spotted the soon-to-be-open table and watch them impatiently as they gather up their things.

‘Should we get some coffee and head down to the pier so we can talk?’ Karen suggests.

*

Ten minutes later she takes the plastic lid off her paper cup and blows on the contents. They have sat down on one of the grey benches that line the stone pier, halfway out. Further on, where the pier curves gently towards the lighthouse that rises like an exclamation point four hundred yards out into the North Sea, iron gates and barbed wire bar public access. Too many accidents caused by blustery winds and too many attempted and successful suicides eventually made the Provincial Board close off the end of the pier.