The twitch tells me I’m right.

‘You think it’s connected?’ he finally asks.

‘You think it isn’t?’

Jansen shrugs, and he looks over to see Vermeer deep in conversation, then joins me. ‘I dunno,’ he says, shaking his head.

‘I heard something in there, though.’

‘There was a blind hanging by an open window; could it have been that?’

I concede it could.

‘Something weird, though,’ Jansen says.

‘Yeah?’

Jansen glances at Vermeer again, who’s still deep in conversation. He sits down.

‘We spoke to Huisman’s boss earlier. Turns out he works shifts up at the docks. Just manual stuff, hauling around boxes in a hi-vis, that kind of thing. But his boss says that Huisman had been acting strange the last couple of weeks.’

‘Strange how?’

‘Apparently he was usually pretty quiet, kept to himself. But there were a couple of incidents recently when he got into arguments with other people on the crew.’

‘Arguments over what?’

‘Just stuff, nothing out of the ordinary. But here’s the thing, he had some leave owed to him and he booked it off a week and a half ago. His boss assumed he was going on holiday and asked him where and Huisman got uncomfortable, couldn’t give a straight answer. So I checked it out and apparently Huisman doesn’t actually have a valid passport; his ran out six years ago and he never renewed it.’

‘So he didn’t go abroad, but plenty of people holiday here.’

‘I guess … I was hoping we’d find something up there to tell us where he’d gone but there was nothing. No computer either so can’t get his emails.’

Vermeer finishes up and heads our way. Jansen takes this as his cue to stand up.

‘I thought I made myself clear yesterday,’ Vermeer says when she reaches me, ‘but obviously I didn’t. So let me be clear now: you are not to get involved with this investigation, unless we specifically ask you to look at something for us. If I find you poking round again, I’ll have you arrested for impeding an active investigation. Clear?’

I nod. She holds my gaze a beat or two longer, before walking back to the unmarked, Jansen in tow. She’s right, I should drop it now, walk away. It’s not going to do me any good. But I’m finding there’s a part of me that doesn’t like to let go.

‘So what’s next?’ I find myself calling out.

Vermeer stops, then turns back. ‘Next? I don’t think you’ve understood. There is no next.’

‘Are you telling me Huisman’s not connected?’

‘I’m telling you it’s none of your business.’