They couldn’t just storm the house either. They wouldn’t be able to provide a valid reason for doing so. The rape was scheduled to take place in the basement. Pryga had dogs that announced the arrival of every visitor. Even if they went at lightning speed they wouldn’t manage to break down the doors and catch the perpetrators in flagrante. And on what suspicion would they arrest those present? It wasn’t a crime to lock oneself into a boiler room and set up a camera beside a mattress. Not even if there was a young boy lying on it with a bare torso.

‘We can’t risk a twelve-year-old boy being raped and infected with HIV,’ Schwartz protested.

‘I don’t know if I spoke too quickly back then,’ Kramer said, stressing each word very deliberately, as if talking to an imbecile. ‘You’re not going in there. You’ve. Got. All. Your. Teeth.’

Schwartz rubbed his three-day or seven-day beard. He couldn’t say for sure when he’d last slept at home.

‘What about Doctor Malchow?’

‘The team doctor?’ Kramer looked at him as if he’d just asked for an adult nappy. ‘Listen, I know you’re a sandwich short of a picnic, but even you can’t be so crazy as to have your teeth sliced off. And even if…’ Kramer broke off, checking his watch. ‘It would take Malchow at least twenty minutes to get here. You’d need another three for the anaesthetic, and five for the operation.’ He pointed to the monitor that showed the front of the house. ‘Who’s to say the party won’t be over in half an hour?’

‘You’re right,’ Schwartz said, sitting down exhausted on an upholstered bench that ran along the side of the van.

‘We’ll abort then?’ Kramer said.

Rather than answering, Schwartz felt under his seat. He pulled out his army-green duffle bag that accompanied him on every operation.

‘What’s going on?’ the chief asked.

Schwartz threw the clothes he’d exchanged earlier for his leather gear onto the floor and rummaged around at the bottom of the bag.

It took him no more than a few seconds to find what he was looking for amongst the cables, rolls of sticky tape, batteries and tools.

‘Tell me this is a joke,’ Kramer said when Schwartz asked him for a mirror.

‘Forget it,’ Schwartz replied with a shrug. ‘I can manage without one.’

Then he put the pliers to his upper left incisor.

2

Six hours later

‘You’re completely insane.’

‘Thanks for putting it so gently.’

‘No, you really are.’

The suntanned dentist looked like she wanted to give him a slap. Now she was going to ask him if he thought he was Rambo, just as Kramer, the head of special forces, the two paramedics and half a dozen others had done since the operation finished.