I don’t know about that. I worked it with my friend and colleague Hank de Vries, and later on in the investigation with Station Chief Smit. Right now, the only thing keeping Hank breathing is a life-support machine at the AMC, the Academic Medical Center, and Station Chief Smit … well, he isn’t breathing at all. I brace for another flashback which thankfully doesn’t come.

‘Because of the bizarre way she’d been killed the circle was kept very small,’ I tell him. ‘There were probably only a handful of us who knew the full story. I imagine Judge Muller had a hand in that as well.’

‘Makes sense. Vermeer’s managed to keep the details of Kleine’s death out of the press so far. How long that will last, though, I don’t know.’

‘Good luck with that. We managed it back then, but seven years ago was like a different age.’

‘The system, though, that should have alerted us. That just feels wrong … like someone was trying to hide it.’

‘And I thought I was paranoid. You know what systems are like, someone didn’t enter the details correctly or screwed up some field or other.’

Jansen rubs his hands over his face before breathing out another long sigh. I wonder how much sleep he’s been getting.

‘You’re right. Fucking overworked is all. But I really need to get Vermeer; she’ll want to hear this.’

‘First thing I’d check is if there’s any link between Lucie Muller and your victim.’

‘Yeah, I’ll look into that. Unlikely, though. Marianne Kleine would still have been a teenager during your case.’

‘How old?’

‘She was twenty-five. And she was already the founder of a tech start-up that investors have put millions into. Kids these days … If you haven’t made yourself into a billionaire with some world-changing idea by the time you’re thirty, then you’re basically a total loser.’

‘If you haven’t managed that you can always become a cop.’

We both do the mirthless laugh at that one.

‘My dad told me not to,’ Jansen says. ‘Maybe I should have listened … Anyway, Vermeer. I’ll go get her.’

‘Listen, there’s a bit of paper at home waiting for me to sign,’ I tell Jansen. ‘Once I do I’m out, for good.’

‘All the more reason for you to stay now and speak to her.’

I should walk out now; my arm’s throbbing again, I’ve just had two bad flashbacks, and unless I get going soon Joel will have gone to bed. So I open my mouth to tell him no, only to hear it betray me. ‘You’ve got ten minutes.’

Every investigative cop gets one.

One case that seeps into you like a devastating chronic disease. For some reason I got more than one, but of those Lucie Muller’s death was probably the worst.