“It didn’t happen,” he said, as if talking to himself. A mantra. “It simply didn’t happen.”

“I can’t think like that.”

“It’s not a question of trying. You have to just do it. Flip the switch.”

“I know that’s how it works with you, but is it really so strange that I want to talk about it? Who else am I supposed to discuss it with?”

He looked at her in silence, almost pained. Sometimes she didn’t understand him at all.

She leaned toward him and put her hand on his wrist. “What we’ve done, Werner—we can’t share it with anybody else. Never. You’re my partner. Don’t shut me out.”

14

14

Brian’s room still looked the same as an hour ago. Fragments of glass lay all over the floor. They sparkled against the synthetic carpet and crunched under Ralf’s sneakers. The white envelope lay half-concealed under a black panel, with sheets of paper protruding from it that were covered in blue handwriting. Photos too. Something that looked like a map. Ralf sat down on Brian’s bed and shook the contents out of the envelope. The map was a printout from the internet. It took a moment for him to realize that it was the district where Sara lived. Close to the edge of the neighborhood, next to one of the main roads, was an X. The number “23” had been scribbled next to it. Ralf cocked his head and rotated the map slightly. There was no mistaking it: Sara’s parents’ house.

Next, he picked up the notes. On a sheet of square-ruled notepaper stood a list of abbreviations. The letters W, H, S, T, and E seemed clear enough to him: Werner, Helen, Sara, Thom, and Emma. Next to these were times—all in the evening—and yet more abbreviations. TC must be tennis club; those letters were written next to Thom and Emma. Ralf pursed his lips. Brian had used this sheet of paper to plan the robbery. It described where the members of the family would be that evening, and when.