After a few minutes, he broke the silence. “You should just go if you need to, Mom. I can manage things here.”

She shook her head resolutely. “I’ll just be a little late for work. This takes priority.”

He picked at the fabric of his gray hoodie. “They don’t give a shit about us.”

“They’re busy,” she said quietly.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor behind the counter. A uniformed officer appeared from the back. Ralf recognized him: Remko van Amersfoort, the neighborhood policeman who had fined him for jaywalking. A bully, plain and simple. Ralf bit the inside of his cheek and looked away.

His mother touched his knee. “Sit still, Son. You’re making my chair wobble.”

The female officer stood up, and Van Amersfoort took her place. They exchanged a few words, and the man briefly looked in their direction before nodding to the woman.

Ralf studied their movements carefully from the corner of his eye. What exactly was so fucking important that they could leave them sitting here like this? He bit his nails in irritation.

Two officers walked in through the main entrance—an olive-skinned man with a shaven head, and a shorter colleague who spoke loudly with a Rotterdam accent. Their keys jingled.

Ralf looked away and cursed under his breath. More familiar faces: Ahmed Loukili—a.k.a. “the Snitch”—and Rudi Zwart. Those two had spent so long harassing his old group of friends that you could easily call it stalking. Ralf had been fourteen or fifteen back then. At that time, he used to meet his friends in the parking lot of the shopping mall or on the square in front of the church. Sometimes there would be girls there too, but generally it would just be a group of boys standing around, smoking and telling each other tall tales. During one particular period, the police used to drive past three or four times a day—slowing to a crawl—and would question them and check their documents almost daily. As if they were living in occupied territory. Anyone who didn’t have their ID on them would be issued an on-the-spot fine, and they’d also give you a ticket if they found even the tiniest thing wrong with your bike or scooter. Those guys never listened to any explanations: that you’d lost your ID card the day before, that the battery for your taillight had gone flat on the way here. Whatever you said, they refused to believe it. They just looked at you with contempt. Smug expressions that said, Do you really think you’re so clever and we’re so stupid?

Back then, Ralf had never stolen anything, had done virtually nothing wrong. All that came later. If people always blame you, then you might as well deserve it.

Ralf’s mother suddenly stood up and walked over to the two officers.

“Mom, wait.”

She didn’t hear him.

4

4

I’m here.