“You don’t need to be afraid. I came unarmed. I want to find a solution.”

“A solution?”

“Just you and me. We can take my car to Kronoberg jail. No big arrest, just you and me because we choose to trust each other.”

She had hidden her gun behind her back, stuffed it into her waistband. That’s how she got dressed while he was waiting in the stairwell.

“We’re not going anywhere.”

“You’re not gonna shoot me. I know that. Because we mean something to each other.”

She’d heard what he said. For a moment it lay there between them. Like a possibility. Until she shook his words off.

“I don’t want to shoot you. But I’ll do it if you force me to.”

“You won’t shoot me just like you couldn’t let the Hoffmann family die. Because after everything that’s happened, you know the difference. Between right and wrong.”

She laughed. Not scornfully or heartily. Emptily.

“Superintendent, there’s no such thing as right or wrong. All of that ended in an apartment seventeen years ago.”

Ewert Grens looked at the young woman.

And she looked at him.

And for the first time it didn’t feel strained or awkward.

“Now and then, Amelia . . . I’ve let people go. Despite being guilty of a crime. Because in some cases justice and the law are two different things. I considered doing that for you. But those I’ve allowed to go were victims who made the wrong decision at the last minute. You’re also a victim, my God, I know that. But you made your choice. You decided quite consciously to do what you did. To take other people’s lives. I can’t let you go. But if you put down the gun and come with me peacefully and quietly to the station, I will do everything in my power to make sure your crimes are seen in the only possible light. In light of what happened back then, long ago, when we first met.”

Chapter 58

She paused in the hall, leaning against the door of the living room, listening to her three children breathe. They were sleeping. Safely. She’d been walking around Ewert’s large apartment since he left it in the middle of the night without explaining where he was going or why he looked so upset. Nor had she asked, it wasn’t her place, and she knew from those times when she’d seen a look like that on Piet’s face that it was useless.