“I’ll explain more—later. When the time I need has started to tick. But I’m absolutely sure, Wilson. Someone has opened that safe, which you, the formal head of our infiltration program, are responsible for. And they took out some extremely confidential documents. One of our colleagues in this very building.”

“For the third time: what the hell are you talking about? No one’s gotten into my safe. There’s been no visible entry. Not a trace of someone even having tried to break into it. Are you bored, Ewert? Isn’t it enough to have two, possibly three murders to investigate? A break-in—at the police station?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. Not even in this corridor.”

They both remembered that night long ago when Ewert Grens decided to break into Wilson’s predecessor’s office and take the computer that was the key to what was going on at the time. It had been so much easier than either of them imagined, forcing a locked door and making it hardly visible afterward.

“But no one has ever gotten into one of our safes, Ewert. And back then our office doors weren’t as secure as the ones we have now.”

“Then open it. And prove me wrong.”

Erik Wilson glanced at Grens’s coffee mug, still only half drunk on the visitor chair—as if still hoping to wake up from what the detective superintendent was telling him, hopefully in some alternative to this reality. And an involuntary shudder passed through his body. Ewert Grens was often difficult to understand and had a way about him that required practice to endure—but he didn’t usually indulge in these kinds of theatrics.

“If you’ll just look away for a moment, Ewert.”

Grens turned around while Wilson input an eight-digit code.

“Very well—and what is supposed to be missing?”

“You can start with Paula’s envelope.”

The look that Erik Wilson gave Ewert Grens contained a strange mix of emotions.

Astonishment. Fear. Contempt. Distrust.

All at the same time.

“Paula’s envelope?”

“Open it.”

Erik Wilson had worked for a decade as Piet Hoffmann’s handler, and was therefore Hoffmann’s only connection to the security of the police world. Erik Wilson had given Hoffmann the code name Paula, and Erik Wilson had written his real name on a piece of paper and sealed it inside an envelope.

That was the envelope that Grens was now asking him to open.

And as Wilson lifted it from one of the shelves near the bottom of the safe, it was immediately obvious that it was already open.

A broken seal. An envelope with no contents.

The involuntary shudder was followed by a few more, Erik Wilson’s face blanched, and he had to grab hold of the safe for a support.

“I . . . don’t understand.”

“I can see that.”

“Ewert, this . . . I . . .”

“I want you to check one more thing. The black logbooks.”