“I can’t tell you. It’s between me and him.”

Latifi hesitated, looked at Hoffmann, judging him.

“So what you’re saying is that you don’t want to go to the airport?”

“What I’m saying is that I need you to give me the address of the house where he’s staying.”

Latifi stretched his big body, unconsciously running his hand over his square face. He seemed to weigh what he knew against what he suspected.

“I can’t give you the address.”

“Latifi, goddamn.”

“But I can drive you there.”

Hoffmann nodded. Thankful. And, of course, realized this clever police officer’s motive—by following along, being on-site, he hoped to prevent or at least mitigate the consequences of any possible confrontation.

Latifi started the car, and they rolled out of the neighborhood.

“Hamid Cana is one of the criminals I keep track of. Because I think it’s my job. Even though I, as you already know, can’t arrest him. Or, I can always arrest him but I’ve learned it’s pointless, he’s released before I even finish the paperwork.”

It was still light, but the first signs of twilight were approaching as they left the city on a large highway headed east.

“I don’t just know that he makes his living selling off the Albania arms surplus—I can prove it, and in another country that would mean his conviction. I also know that the woman he’s with right now, where we are headed, is the same person who owns the house you were just inside.”

“Same woman?”

“The same.”

“Mistress and also technically the owner of their headquarters?”

“Mistress—yes, but she’s involved as more than just a legal technicality. I’m pretty sure they run the guns together. Vesa Lilaj. Forty-seven years old, and nothing more serious on her record than a few parking tickets. But she’s related to this on another, higher level—she’s the sister of the man who was once in charge of the gun smuggling network to northern Europe. And then he was murdered. Power struggle, if our information is correct. A clear execution in . . . Sweden, I think, your homeland, Larsson. His wife and children were shot, too. At least that’s the info we got. That will be—twenty years soon? The murder of a whole family that you, as a Swedish police officer, would of course know well?”

“What was his name? The brother?”

“Mirza. Mirza Lilaj.”

Piet Hoffmann wasn’t familiar with the names Mirza or Vesa Lilaj. But then again he wasn’t a police officer either. He wondered if Ewert Grens might have heard of them. Or the murders Latifi was referring to. He had to remember to ask him about it, later, when this was over.

“No, sorry, twenty years ago was before my time.”