They put their faith in him. Thought he was the kind of adult who did the right thing. And it had made Grens feel warm someplace deep in his chest from that very first afternoon when he’d hastily filled in as a babysitter.

“No. I’m not an uncle either. I’m not really anything to you.”

“Because you can be, if you want.”

What began in the Hoffmanns’ kitchen, that conversation, had developed into a friendship. Hugo still sometimes came into town without his parents’ knowledge and went to the police station and asked to talk to the detective superintendent who spent his nights there on a sofa. And their little sister—Ewert Grens had accidentally been the first to know that Zofia was pregnant with her. Even before her father.

Is that what I should do with myself? Later? In half a year when the police force doesn’t want me anymore?

Pretend to be somebody’s grandfather?

No.

They had a nice time. It had done him good. But it was hardly the answer to his future.

Grens drank more water. Emptied a big glass in just a few sips. The rage he felt at some criminals, some gang or mafia, threatening children—those children—wouldn’t pass; it stuck in his throat and chest, clumping up.

“We need more cold water. And more hot coffee.”

He’d just filled the coffeepot and started brewing when his door rang. At this hour? After midnight? First a masked visitor in his kitchen—and now someone was ringing a doorbell that never gets rung?

The gun still lay on the table next to an unopened pack of dry biscuits. Ewert Grens grabbed it, cocked it, held it behind his back as he walked toward the front door.

It rang again. Obstinately.

He kept the gun behind him as he gently pushed open the door, just a crack that made it as hard to see out as it was to see in.

“Superintendent Grens?”

Two uniformed police officers. Fairly young. One blond, one brunette. That was all he could make out.

“Yes?”

“You called for backup. A burglar. Hermansson told us it was an emergency.”

Ewert Grens de-cocked the gun and put it in his waistband, making sure it was hidden beneath his jacket as he opened the door wide.

“Oh yes, right. Just a misunderstanding.”

The dark-haired one was slightly larger, and he was the one who spoke.

“A misunderstanding? According to Hermansson, your weapon was drawn. Aimed at the intruder in question.”

“We . . . got our signals crossed.”

The two officers looked at Grens. They too seemed to know Hermansson. And if they did, they knew she didn’t get her signals crossed.

“We’d like to come inside. Just make sure everything’s okay.”