I don’t know the figure, but I do know it’s extremely low compared to rural areas where it’s more common. Torching someone you don’t like’s house when it’s in the middle of a field is one thing, doing it in a city as compact as Amsterdam, where the houses are jammed together so tightly, is quite another. But still. Was it a warning? I suddenly think of what the nurse Stephanie Dekker said, about her visit from the man in pinstripes. And that makes me think of Muller. He’d been trying to warn me off as well, though I’d thought it was for another reason. What’s more, I realize with a thud of my heart, the description of the man Dekker had given could actually apply to Muller. I’m feeling less calm all of a sudden, the Night Queen losing her hold over me.

‘I’m just saying that you need to be really careful, okay?’ Joel says finally. I suddenly hear the fire investigator’s question: you got any enemies? ‘Poking round a company like that, particularly if they had a bad failure and are already hurting, is a very dangerous game.’

Bloemgracht is not on the route between Joel and Sabine’s, and yet I find myself here anyway. I’ve texted her to say I’d be there soon and that I didn’t have my keys. Hopefully she doesn’t mind staying up a little longer. There’s a lingering sooty smell as I near the burnt-out wreckage. With each step the air becomes more dense, and the houses on either side of the canal seem to stretch up and curl in to loom over me, blocking out the sky. The street lights are out, they must have been damaged in the fire, and it feels desolate and empty. I sit right on the edge of the canal, feet dangling over the water, and stare at the hull. I’m right in the centre of one of the most densely populated cities in Europe, and yet I feel totally alone.

My thoughts are jumbled but eventually twist round to what Joel had said earlier. Could this have been a warning to stay away? Why else would someone want to burn down my houseboat? Earlier I’d managed to brush it off, clear it from the forefront of my mind. But pushing things away like that seems to be counterproductive, because it had lurked, waiting for its moment to push its way back. And just to add to all this, hadn’t Muller told me to go back to my houseboat? At the time it’d struck me as odd. Now it’s looking downright sinister.