‘It’s all wrong, anyway,’ he said and sipped his tea without stirring it, letting the sugar dissolve and settle on the bottom of the cup. ‘It’s not even a night scene. It was the varnish that made it too dark. And they’re nothing to do with a nightwatch. They’re civil militiamen under the command of an aristocrat. It was just that the original painting had been stored next to another titled de Nachtwacht and the titles were confused.’

Margaret Fabel shook her head, smiling reproachfully. ‘Sometimes, Jan, knowledge isn’t the answer to everything. That painting is what you think it is when you look at it. Not what its history makes it. That was another thing about you. You always had to know things. Find things out. You becoming a policeman isn’t really the great mystery you think it is.’

Fabel looked again at the painting. Not night, day. Not police, an armed militia. A few days ago he would have said that it had more to do with Breidenbach, the young MEK trooper, than with Fabel. But Breidenbach had died defining what it meant to be a policeman: placing himself in harm’s way to protect the ordinary citizen. They changed the subject and talked about Fabel’s brother Lex for a while, and how his restaurant on the island of Sylt was doing its best business for years. Then Fabel’s mother asked about Susanne.

‘She’s fine,’ said Fabel.

‘Is everything all right between you two?’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

‘I don’t know …’ She frowned. Fabel noticed the deepening creases in her brow. Age had crept up on his mother without him noticing. ‘It’s just that you don’t talk about Susanne so much these days. I do hope everything is all right. She’s a lovely person, Jan. You’re lucky to have found her.’

Fabel put his cup down. ‘Do you remember that case I was involved with last year? The one that took such a terrible toll on Maria Klee?’

Margaret Fabel nodded.

‘There was a terrorist connection to the case. I got involved in investigating anarchist and radical groups that had kind of faded into the background. Raking up the past, I suppose you’d call it.’

‘But what has this to do with Susanne?’

‘I was sent a file. Background information more than anything. One of the photographs was of a guy called Christian Wohlmut. It was taken about nineteen-ninety, when German domestic terrorism was on its last legs. Wohlmut wanted to breathe new life into it. He sent parcel and letter bombs to US interests in Germany. Amateur stuff and most were intercepted or failed to go off. But one was professional enough to maim a young secretarial worker in an American oil company’s office in Munich. That’s where Wohlmut was based. Munich. And that’s where Susanne studied.’

‘It’s a big city, Jan,’ said his mother. But her frown indicated that she was already ahead of him.

‘There was a girl in the photograph with Wohlmut. It was blurred and she was only ever described as “unknown female”.’