At five the next morning I took the gun from my wife’s gray handbag. I rowed across the sound, pulled the rowboat up onto the rocky beach beside the harbor. I walked into the center of the village, all white clapboard houses standing on piles driven into the rock.

I was no longer a journalist. No longer a satirist. What, then? I stared at the screen of my phone, wondering what I was planning.

I drove, windows down, tasting the coming storm.

The heat haze simmered above the cornfields. Birds perched on power lines. Clouds rolled in. The evening roads were empty and straight, the air electric. My thoughts were full of murder. That man, who had taken my daughter and done with her—what? What had Bror done to Licia, that she had betrayed so many children? How had he turned her mind?

Make him confess.

On the passenger seat my phone rang. I looked across. Tvist. I picked it up in my right hand, swiped my thumb across the screen, brought it up to my ear. “Yeah?”

“Cal, the Andersens wish to return to Garden Island. They say they have extra information they wish to impart. Some of that information concerns Licia. They wish to have the families present.”

“Oh please. That has to be against pretty much every law going.”

“Exceptional circumstances,” he said. “I have a free hand.”

“You didn’t say no?”

“It’s been formalized by the court.”

I laughed. “This country . . .”

“Maybe it won’t yield any useful operation intelligence—”

“You think?”

“But it could.”

I laughed again. “Those men want to extract every last fucking ounce of outraged emotion from us. And you’re giving them that platform. So my reaction to what you’ve just said is fuck them. And fuck the court. I’m sorry. This is a parody of justice. I can’t take part, Tvist.”

“Your wife has already said yes; also on Viktoria’s behalf.”

“Then my wife and I will talk.”

“She tells me you are not at the cabin. Perhaps you would like to come in to see me?”

“Have you arrested Bror?”

“Soon.”

“Then no,” I said. “But let’s talk when you do.”

At the first wooden sign I reversed up the track a few meters, parked the car at the side.

I looked at the farmhouse. I could hear the barking of the dogs. I could see no movement beyond gray clothes drying on a line. A woodpecker swooped between the ash trees that lined the path. I drove an arc across the dried grass of the field, turning so the car faced away from the farm—in case I needed to run. I took the gun from the glove box, held it in my hand for a time, enjoying its comforting weight. Then I carefully replaced it and got out of the car.

I was no killer.