“About what happened yesterday.”

Latifi looked at his guest in confusion.

“Yesterday?”

“When you and I stopped at the gas station.”

Another couple of seconds of feeling lost. And then—anger.

“It was . . . you?”

“Yes.”

“You! Larsson!”

“I look a little different and that’s not my name—and I’m not a police officer. If we’re starting over. But I am here on behalf of a Swedish police officer.”

The large, honest man hesitated—studied Hoffmann for a long time, so deep in his own thoughts that he seemed unaware he’d taken off the police cap he always wore low on his forehead and exposed his large scar.

“Go inside.”

He nodded toward Hoffmann and the simple visitor’s chair, the only thing in that tiny office besides the desk itself.

“As you may be aware, I’m pretty busy right now looking for whoever shot Hamid Cana in the chest and injured Vesa Lilaj.”

Piet Hoffmann sat down, looking for a place to stretch his legs. There wasn’t one.

“You never got the whole truth.”

“I was on your side. But I can’t sanction murder.”

“And maybe I won’t be able to give you the whole truth now. But enough for you to understand why I chose to come back here.”

“On the contrary, I lock up murderers, no matter their reasons. And I just decided—to call for reinforcements. You’re going to be arrested and put away.”

Latifi reached toward the black, clumsy, old-fashioned Bakelite phone on his desk, lifting the handset and starting to dial some internal number on the round disc.

“No.”

Hoffmann put his hand over the telephone cradle and broke the connection.

“You’re not gonna arrest me.”

Gezim Latifi’s gun had been in one of the desk drawers. Now he pointed it at Piet Hoffmann’s head.

“Please put your hands on my desk so I can cuff them.”

Hoffmann kept his hand over the phone.

“If I’d wanted to disappear I would have, and you never would have seen me again. You know after last night that I’m pretty good at it. But I came here voluntarily. And, unlike you, I’m unarmed.”

Latifi looked at his visitor while moving the muzzle of his gun from head to chest, from chest to head.

“If you arrest me now, Latifi, you’ll never know why I’m here. And why what I have to say might be crucial to you.”

From head to chest.

From the chest to the head.

While the Albanian policeman silently tried to make up his mind.

“If I choose to lower this gun. If I choose to wait to arrest you. What exactly is it that you want?”

“Come with me on a little excursion.”

“We did that yesterday. It didn’t end so well.”

“And we’re going to use this.”