“Aren’t you listening to me, Dad? You get lots of stuff, like letters, catalogs, all the time, and I want that too someday when I get my own mailbox, and . . .”

“That’s not what I meant. Was there anything else in the envelope?”

“Other than my action figure?”

“Yes.”

Rasmus fell silent, thinking hard, staring at the mailbox and trying to remember something he didn’t know he was going to have to remember. He was really trying. While Hoffmann fought everything tearing him up inside, trying not to show his son how fucking scared or angry or whatever else it felt like all at the same time.

“I don’t know.”

“A note? A letter? A message? Next to the toy?”

“Don’t know.”

“Are you sure, Rasmus?”

“I just took the action figure. That’s what I wanted. Okay?”

Piet Hoffmann carried the hand grenade with him as he walked the garden path of square flagstones toward the rusty gate and black mailbox with white text. Away from his little boy. Even though he didn’t need to. He knew that now. He’d examined it more closely and realized it lacked its explosive heart. The person who’d transformed this into a toy and put it into their mailbox did so to scare them. The fuse and pin had been unscrewed and the explosives removed. Without them it wasn’t a hand grenade. Just a little pile of pressed TNT.

Scare them. That was its purpose.

Remove the heart before delivering—he’d done that himself in another life. A warning to someone who was supposed to pay, or who better not testify, or who better consider getting out of the drug business.

Hoffmann squeezed the oval metal ball in his hand.

A warning.

Why?

The gate creaked like usual, then just a few long strides to the fence. The mailbox hung there. In the very place he’d nailed it to with the help of a then four-year-old Hugo, who had proudly sounded out their last name over and over again to anyone who might listen.

He should maybe secure the area.

But scaring someone like, sending them a warning, has a purpose. It’s supposed to make the recipient start to think, weighing the message, becoming willing to do whatever’s needed.

He lifted the top of the mailbox and peered inside.

It looked just as Rasmus had described. Four letters. A free newspaper. A bunch of junk mail.

And at the very back an open brown envelope.

Hoffmann took out the flyers, the paper, the four letters from the city, the tax agency, their electricity bill, and something from Ikea. Then it was only the brown envelope. He’d grabbed his winter gloves from the hall shelf on the way out, and he pulled them on now. A bit too thick, clumsy, but just in case he wanted to dust for prints later.

To Rasmus and Hugo