He didn’t smoke as much anymore as he once had. Up until just ten years ago, life as a smoker had been completely different. Back then he had started his day every morning with a cup of coffee and a smoke while he read the newspaper at the kitchen table at home, and Connie had only occasionally quibbled about the smell. At police headquarters he had always had an overfilled ashtray sitting on his desk, and the end of every meal was marked with the sizzling click of the lighter. But then the smoking bans had come and the health missionaries had made their move, and suddenly a smoker was reduced to a revolting subhuman who was sent outside into the rain like a disobedient dog. There you could stand under a roof overhang with your collar turned up around your ears, puffing fiendishly like any old addict, before you were once again allowed back in, and Schäfer had no time for that bullshit! No one was going to decide where and when he was going to smoke. So instead of smoking twenty cigarettes a day in the microscopic smoking booths with the jet engine exhaust hoods at police headquarters or obediently staying inside the lines in the specially designated smoking areas on the sidewalk in front of the building, he had scaled back his consumption significantly. Now he only smoked a couple of cigarettes a day, sometimes three or four, but never like a cowed animal, and never in the “designated smoking areas.” Instead he lit up on his way from A to B in the spaces where—at least for the time being—smoking was still allowed: the street, parks and natural areas, and on his patio at home.

He tipped an imaginary hat when he passed the security guards in the lobby and took the elevator up to his office on the second floor.

“All right!” He clapped his hands decisively and talked to himself as he walked into the room. “What the hell have I been missing?”

He started at the beginning. He reread every single page of all the case files and was halfway through Christoffer Mossing’s autopsy report when Augustin walked into the office.

“You’re already here?”

“Hmm,” Schäfer replied without looking up.

“What are you doing?”

He pulled off his reading glasses and tossed them onto the desk in front of him. “I’m going fucking nuts here.”

Augustin smiled and walked around to her side of the desk.

“There’s something,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

“What kind of something?”

“Something I can’t put my finger on. You know, like when you can’t remember a name even though it’s on the tip of your tongue? That’s how I feel. What the hell is it that I’m trying to come up with?”

“That I don’t know,” Augustin said. “But you’ll let me know when you figure it out, right?”