When Werner saw her coming downstairs, he turned off the TV and grabbed his scarf from the kitchen island. “Let’s go!” he exclaimed playfully in his best English.

She put on her coat and stepped out into the cold, dark morning. Werner locked the back door.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, and not much could be seen in the garden other than the black silhouettes of the bushes and conifers and the sinister glow of the swimming pool. Leaves rustled quietly. “Aren’t you worried, Werner?”

He stopped. “What about?”

“I feel so terrible leaving the girls alone in the house. You never know if—”

He cut her off. “It’s over.”

“But it could happen again, couldn’t it? You’d already been worried for a long time, and with good reason. That’s why you bought a gun. Where did you get that from, anyway?”

“I work in the restaurant business, honey. You get all kinds of customers coming through the door. Including people who can help you out with that sort of thing.”

She stared past him into the garden. “Maybe it was naive of me, but I never thought something like that could happen to us. I mean, we never keep cash in the house.” She looked at him. “Do we?”

He shook his head. “No, of course not. Not much, anyway.”

2

2

Ralf tossed and turned in bed. He was trying to unpack exactly what he had seen last night—and what it might mean. Sara’s father was sleeping with Brian’s mother. That explained why he had seen him at her house last week. Was she aware that her lover had shot and killed her son? He didn’t think so—they seemed to be enjoying each other’s company.

He rolled over and stared at the wall. Could it be Emily, not Sara, who had encouraged Brian to rob Werner? She worked in the office at the Horn of Plenty, so she would know how much money Werner took home with him, and when. Or had Brian’s mother inadvertently let it slip that Werner kept money at home, and had Brian then used Sara to find out the best time to strike? That sounded plausible. If Brian had gone about it the right way—and he was perfectly capable of that—then neither Sara nor Emily would have suspected a thing.

Ralf stretched and rubbed his face. Really, he shouldn’t be concerning himself with other people’s problems. He had more than enough of his own.

Mikey would be expecting his money in exactly five hours’ time. Of the sum that Ralf had set aside for the down payment, there were now only three hundred euros left after his purchase of the gun. There was no way he would be able to get hold of the remaining cash today without going to extreme lengths.