Huisman leaves soon after and I’m left staring out into the IJ’s waters, the light glinting off the choppy surface a language just outside of my comprehension.

Later I’m staring at the wreckage of my boat. We’re in that moment between light and dark, just before the street-light sensors kick in. Kush’s lying at my feet, exhausted from the day, and the intense scrub-down he’d been subjected to post-dead seagull. I’m not sure the smell’s entirely gone, though. It’s cold, the air crisp enough to frost again tonight, but I’d borrowed a jacket from Joel which is fit for a Russian winter. The insurance company had called earlier, the chirpy representative bursting to give me the good news that they will be footing the entire cost of rebuilding the boat. For some reason I should have been elated, or at least relieved. But I’d found myself asking if I could cash it in instead, maybe buy somewhere else with it. The rep had told me just how much the rebuild was going to cost, a sum so small in comparison to house prices I’d be lucky to find a kennel in central Amsterdam, far less a flat big enough for a human. I’d agreed to the rebuild.

The evening’s deepening, Vermeer should be here soon, and I reach for my vape before remembering what happened to it. I will have to get another one, but for now I’m going old-style. I crumble some of the white bud I’d raided from Joel’s humidor earlier into a paper and start rolling, the feel of it between my fingers its own kind of therapy. I baptize it. The saliva will make it burn slower and more evenly. Kush perks up, but when he figures that whatever it is I’m doing seems unlikely to immediately yield anything edible he loses interest. I hold the joint up in front of me and guide the flame to it. For a second it looks like my houseboat’s burning all over again. Across the water a light flicks on in Leah’s houseboat.

‘Medicating again?’

Vermeer sits down, Kush between us, and scratches his ear. Kush responds with a long low groan. I’m almost jealous. The dog seems to get so much pleasure from life it’s unreal.

‘Only for the trouble that’s coming,’ I tell her. It’s a quote from a song, only I don’t reckon Vermeer knows that.

‘Either you have a poetic turn I didn’t know about, or your taste in music is better than I thought.’

Huh, Vermeer’s a dark horse indeed.

‘So, here to rearrest me?’

‘If Beving had his way I would be. He knows it’s not you, though. He’s just being a dick. Forbidden me to carry on looking at DH Biotech as well.’

Which is hardly a surprise.