He loved sounding like an American drug cop. And looking like one too. He wore tatty cowboy boots, jeans with holes in them and a shirt whose red-and-white diamond pattern was reminiscent of dishcloths.

‘What’s the problem?’ Schwartz said.

‘Jensen.’

‘What’s he up to?’

And how can the guy make any trouble? He’s in one of our isolation cells.

‘Don’t ask me how, but that bastard’s managed to send Pryga a text.’

Schwartz nodded. Emotional outbursts like those exhibited by his superior, now tearing his hair out, were alien to him. Apart from an injection of adrenalin right into the chambers of his heart, there was barely anything that could set his pulse racing. Certainly not the news that a con had once again managed to get his hands on drugs, weapons or, like Jensen, a mobile. Prison was better organised than a supermarket, with a larger selection of items and more customer-friendly opening hours. Including Sundays and public holidays.

‘Did he warn Pryga?’ he asked Kramer.

‘No. The fucker allowed himself a little joke that amounts to the same thing. He was going to let you get caught in the trap.’ The inspector massaged the bags under his eyes, which got larger with every operation. ‘If I wanted to post them they’d have to be sent as a parcel,’ Kramer had recently quipped.

‘How so?’ Schwartz asked.

‘He texted him that Pryga shouldn’t be shocked if he turned up at the party.’

‘Why shocked?’

‘Because he’s tripped and broken an incisor. Top left.’

With his sausage fingers Kramer tapped on the corresponding spot in his mouth.

Schwartz nodded. He hadn’t credited the pervert with that much creativity.

He looked at his watch. Just after five p.m.

Just after ‘too late’.

‘Fuck!’ Kramer slapped the computer table in anger. ‘All that preparation – a complete waste of fucking time. We’ve got to call it off.’

He started clambering into the front seat.

Schwartz opened his mouth to protest, but knew that Kramer was right. They’d been working towards this day for six months. It had started with a rumour in the community that was so unbelievable they thought for ages it was an urban legend. And yet, as it turned out, ‘bug parties’ weren’t a made-up horror story, but actually existed. They consisted of HIV-infected men having unprotected sex with healthy individuals. For the most part this was consensual – the kick was provided by the risk of infection, and this made such events more of a case for a psychiatrist than the public prosecutor.