The kind of grenade Hoffmann held would have been smuggled over the border in a box of ten. It was intended for use in combat, but it was also an obvious choice for a Swedish gang intent on arming itself to the teeth. Ideal for an army of boys with little money, no weapons training, whose goal was to seem dangerous without having to pay for the consequences. Unlike guns, hand grenades demand no prior knowledge, cost a measly five hundred kronor, and the fourteen-year-olds whose job it was to throw them didn’t have to be there when they exploded. They’d drive up to a window their gang leader pointed out, throw the hand grenade against the glass as hard as they could, and drive off on their moped, hearing it explode in the distance. Never having to see what they’ve done, never having the sight of arms and legs torn apart in their mind.

There was a click as Rasmus closed the bathroom door. The patter of small feet on a short walk back to the kitchen. Back to what Rasmus thought was just a toy.

“Dad . . . what . . .”

“Come here, Rasmus. Sit next to me.”

“. . . what did you do! Dad! You ruined my new toy!”

Piet Hoffmann pulled out the kitchen chair closest to himself.

“Rasmus, sweetheart, please do as I say.”

Rasmus did not. He ran over to the table. Everything had been scattered about.

The new toy’s hat. Its arms. Its legs.

And Rasmus started to cry.

Big wet tears rolled down his cheeks, as they sometimes do.

“Mine . . . it’s mine! I don’t understand, Dad. Why did you . . .”

Hoffmann had never hit one of his children, had promised himself he never would. So his children never tried to hit him. But now Rasmus did.

With eight-year-old fists.

Straight to his father’s chest.

Piet Hoffmann waited for the next blow and grabbed him by the arm, pulled him close, and forced his son against the chest he’d just hit. Holding him in his arms, hard but not too hard, until finally the little boy relaxed.

“I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No. I’m sorry, Dad. But I don’t get it . . . I don’t understand. Why did you do it? Why did you ruin . . .”

Then he cried again. A new kind of tears. These were neither angry nor disappointed. Just sad.

“I’m sorry, Rasmus, but you can’t play with that ever again.”

“But I want to. And it’s mine.”

“From now on it’s not. It’s mine. I’ll be taking care of it. But first you have to help me, Rasmus. You have to tell me exactly how you got it. Where it came from. Who gave it to you.”

Rasmus pushed away from Piet’s chest a little. So he could look straight into his father’s eyes.

“You’re angry.”

“No, I’m not angry.”