I can understand his hesitation. Rashid came to the Netherlands to escape conflict. I don’t know the full extent of it because he’s never told me, but from what I’ve managed to piece together he’s the only survivor from a large family. He’d run the usual gauntlet of immigrant jobs until he’d struck lucky, a boutique roastery out in Haarlem. He started off as floor sweeper but whilst there had discovered a love for coffee and had eventually persuaded the company owners to give him a chance at learning to roast. Which turned out to be the best move ever, because Rashid found he was an artist, his medium the bean. Less than six years later he’d opened his own place, complete with two very expensive coffee machines. The Van der Westen Speedsters, he’d told me many times, are like the Bentleys of coffee making. He doted on those things, cleaning them up each night with a spit polish so they started the next day with a gleam.

A gleam which had caught someone else’s eye, because one night he’d heard noises, sneaked down the steep, twisted stairs from his flat and got knocked unconscious by the man who’d broken in. Rashid woke on the cafe floor with a cricked neck, a bad concussion and two spaces on the counters where the Speedsters had been. He’s been battling the insurance company ever since.

‘This will help with insurance?’

‘Hard to say. But maybe.’

‘Hope so. I had to get loan to buy new machine.’

‘How much did that cost?’

He tells me. Jesus. I hope for his sake the insurance comes through, and fast.

The station’s just up ahead now. Apart from a couple of secondments to Haarlem and Den Haag early on, it’s been my home for the best part of eleven years. And like any home, the people there became like family. As in, we bickered, talked behind each other’s backs and held on to resentments long enough to forget what we were actually resenting in the first place. In between that we managed to solve a few murders as well, so it wasn’t all bad.

A desk sergeant I don’t recognize is busy processing two arrests as I step inside so I take a look around. There are framed photos on the wall, previous station chiefs, all in full regalia. One of them makes my stomach flip. Station Chief Henk Smit. His unexplained disappearance last year was a major embarrassment to the force.

He’s laughing. I shove the gun right into his face. The barrel pushes his lip up. There’s a rough band of yellow plaque on his canine. My finger’s on the trigger and –

The flashback cuts out, jarring me back into reality. The curse of PTSD: the flashbacks which seem more real than real.

‘Jaap Rykel?’