Felt so easy to run across the dry earth and climb over the iron gate and drive away in a stolen car. Back. For one night in Shkodër, then a flight home in the morning. After a few kilometers, just at the start of the valley where the houses were denser and the people about to go to bed more numerous, a pair of headlights pierced the darkness. A car heading in the opposite direction. And when both drivers slowed down in order not to crash in that narrow passage, they briefly caught sight of each other through their rolled-down windows. Hoffmann and Latifi. The Albanian police officer, after a toilet visit that never ended, realized his Swedish colleague had deceived him and continued the journey alone. And soon, when Latifi reached the property at the end of the road, he’d also realize there was no longer any confrontation to prevent.

Piet Hoffmann sped up without ever noticing how the potholes made the car sway and hit his body like little knives, or how the gravel let go in those sharp curves and the deep ditches came rushing closer. If running and climbing had felt easy, this felt like flying, he was done, he was free. Absolutely free! And he wanted to hear it. That’s why, for the very first time, he called that distorted voice for answers.

“Yes?”

“You didn’t get back to me.”

“Back to you about what?”

“The photographs you requested, the evidence that my mission was completed.”

“We got your little illustrations. But too late.”

He froze.

A sharp icicle fell through his body.

From his mind down to his chest.

“I sent it at 9:56, six minutes to spare. My phone confirms that.”

A short, unpleasant silence.

That was what Hoffmann heard as this icicle began burying itself inside him.

Finally the distorted voice answered.

“10:07—five minutes too late—the pictures were received. My phone confirms it. So when Zaravic was released he was met not only by his lawyer, but also by the address where your family is hiding. And, as you can probably understand, he’s already on his way.”

Chapter 43

Drive, for fuck’s sake!”

Piet Hoffmann screamed into his phone.

“Zaravic is on his way! You have to go there, now!”

But Ewert Grens didn’t really understand.

“Lower your voice. This damn phone, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem . . .”

“Atlas Road 41. Gamla Sickla. First floor on left side. Zofia and the boys and . . . now, Grens, now!”

Chapter 44

Last year when a boy who had come to trust him was found dead in a refugee foster home, Ewert Grens had run for the first time in a couple of decades. The detective superintendent, whose hip was shattered once and never moved the same again, for a moment chased shadows without pain and without limping.

Now, not only did he feel like he was running, he was.