She sits down at one of the wooden tables behind the Hare and Crow and notes that the troika of retirees are the only people who have opted to stay indoors on a day like this. Around ten other patrons are already enjoying the spectacular sea views from the outdoor seating area. A group of black-headed gulls are perched on the low wall, waiting for the evening’s diners to turn up. Karen shakes her head at the sight of the stupid birds, who for some unfathomable reason always seem to prefer Arild Rasmussen’s mediocre cooking to the delicacies they could find in the sea behind them.

She sips her Spitfire and allows herself a few minutes of staring out at the sparkling North Sea before she bends down and pulls her laptop out of her bag.

*

Just over an hour later she leans back and drains the last dregs of her now lukewarm ale. While she considers going inside to order another, she sums up the day’s meagre results.

No one by the name of Lena Johanson or Luna Johns has been on any airline’s passenger manifest since last Saturday. Or on the manifests for the ferry either, though the ferry company’s routines regarding passenger registration have never been all that reliable, she muses. Her discreet enquiries to Luna’s network operator were equally fruitless; no signal from her phone.

When Karen stopped by KGB Productions in the morning, she had warned them time was running out. Doggerian law requires a formal missing person report to be filed no later than three days after a reported disappearance. Exceptions can only be made if a prosecutor determines that evidence or suspicion exist ‘of a crime the consequences of which would be exacerbated by public notice’.

But since there’s nothing to suggest that Luna has been kidnapped or is the victim of a crime of any kind, they will, for formal reasons, soon be forced to file that report.

The news that they’re almost at that point had been received with equal parts worry and dejection by the boys at KGB.

And by Jounas Smeed.

‘All hell’s going to break loose,’ he’d said when Karen had talked to him a few hours earlier. ‘But you still have twenty-four hours.’

‘No one has seen her since the early hours of Sunday. The seventy-two hours are up in nine hours,’ Karen had objected.

‘No, we’re counting from when you were contacted, and that wasn’t until Sunday afternoon, right? Then it’ll be up to the prosecutor to say if we have sufficient reason to postpone further.’

‘For how long? Granted, she apparently hides away for days at a time occasionally, but sooner or later her loved ones are going to start asking questions.’

‘All the more reason not to stand around bickering. Just find her.’

And with those words, her boss had let her know the conversation was over.

*