“If only life were that simple.” Tvist put an arm on my shoulder. “We’re building a case. One step at a time. This brings us very close.”

Voices murmured. Eyes watched us from all around.

Tvist took his arm from my shoulder. He looked about him at the faces in the crowd. “Do I really have to point out to these people that they are”—he brought his head very close to the face of a young man with a plaited beard—“one hundred meters from police headquarters? This crowd will disperse.” The young man shrank back.

I reached into my pocket. I found on my phone the picture I had taken.

Tvist was turning a slow circle, making sure the crowd had understood.

I passed the phone to Tvist. “I took this at Bror’s farmhouse three hours ago.”

Tvist stared at the screen.

“Eight uniforms,” I said. “In eight bags. And in each of those bags was one of these . . . It’s like a motivational film. With my daughter Licia in a starring role.” I handed him the memory card. “He’s supplying strategic and logistical support to these people. And he’s grooming Arno to step into his shoes.”

“Three hours,” said Tvist quietly. “When this is actionable intelligence—”

“I thought if I laid everything out in front of Licia, with you there, I stood a chance of not losing her a second time.”

He looked at me appraisingly. “And now she’s gone,” he said quietly.

“And now she’s gone.”

I heard myself laugh. It was bitter and hollow.

I said, “I underestimated her intelligence.”

The Hunter

Forty-Two

At home Elsa’s eyes were cold and white, her fury measureless. She listened silently to what I told her, then got to her feet and walked toward the front door. “Don’t follow me,” were her only words.

I stood on the lawn outside, watching her go. And when she was gone I stayed where I was, staring out into the evening. Despair ate at the edges of my thoughts. Licia had been here; we had held her; she was gone.

Then Vee was at my side.

“Where’s Licia?”

I raised my hands. A gesture of surrender. “I don’t know,” I said.

“Dad,” said Vee. “Is everything fucked?”

I could think of nothing to say.

I stood with my head pressed hard against the slick tile, showered till long after the water ran cold, trying desperately to find clarity.

Why had Licia come back? Had she thought she could pick up her life where she had left off? Was mass murder something she believed she could put behind her? Or had she hoped to draw us gently toward a new way of thinking?

Two heroines, Bror had said once. Had they been setting their sights on Vee?

“Why isn’t Mum back?”

I sat up. A shaft of gray-white light across the bed. Vee’s shape in the doorway. Elsa not beside me.