“I’ve noticed lately that it seems like you’ve met someone. You’ve got that look about you. Not something I’m so familiar with myself . . . but I recognize it on others. Love. And when you meet someone, Wilson, you let someone in. Close. Maybe even so close that you get careless.”

Erik Wilson stared, silently.

“Who are you seeing?”

Staring.

“Who?”

Silent.

“Who, Wilson?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Yes it is. Because it has something to do with this.”

“Who I have dinner with or wake up next to is none of your damn business!”

Ewert Grens stood up and walked over to the still open safe, pushed on the door and saw it slide closed again. A metallic click as the locking pins hooked.

“Okay. Let’s assume that. For now. That it wasn’t you, that it wasn’t whoever you’re seeing who got you to reveal the code. But . . . well, it doesn’t look good, what happened. Does it, Wilson? And if it gets out. If I were to start talking about it. First of all, that you’re not taking care of your responsibilities. Secondly, that there’s verifiable information out there that we have worked with criminal infiltrators, which we have always denied, because as we all know it’s illegal.”

“I don’t like your tone, Ewert. What you’re implying. I might even call it a threat.”

Grens patted the safe, a muted sound.

“What you like or don’t like has never interested me. However, solving crimes is something I find rather important. So if my tone makes that job easier, if it gets me the tools I need, then I don’t really care what you think you hear.”

“The tools you need? Ewert—what the hell does that mean?”

The detective patted the safe again, as if they were old friends, pushed a few buttons randomly, and pulled on the door again, as if to remind his boss that it was supposed to be locked like this all the time.

“Okay, Wilson. With my rather obvious tone: I won’t talk about what happened in here while I investigate who broke open that envelope and took the contents of that logbook. In return, you’ll get ahold of an authentic police badge for our new employee, who looks like this.”

Ewert Grens had asked Piet Hoffmann to take a picture of his new appearance and text it to him. The display of the phone Grens placed on Wilson’s desk was filled with the image of a tired and rather puffy-looking man staring straight into the eye of the camera.

“And I say to you—who the hell is that supposed to be?”