Schäfer turned to look at the hotel’s courtyard, which was now lit up by strings of incandescent lights, draped so they zigzagged through the air between two buildings.

He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight.

“Are you done here? In Paris, I mean.”

Heloise took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. Then she nodded.

“Good,” Schäfer said. “Then we’ll fly home first thing tomorrow.”

The day’s newspapers sat fresh and crisp in a rack at the gate. Heloise grabbed a copy of Demokratisk Dagblad and unfolded the paper as she stood in line on the jet bridge on her way into the plane.

The front page was Bøttger’s follow-up story on the Skriver case. It revealed how sources inside the Ministry of Commerce had deliberately misinformed one of the newspaper’s journalists a few weeks ago about the production facilities in Bangalore for a well-known fashion brand. It described how the journalist in question had been fed forged documents to discredit Skriver.

Heloise wasn’t mentioned by name in the story.

The article was accompanied by a sketch drawing of the secretary of commerce and his spray-tanned spin doctor, Carsten Holm. In the drawing, both men had fangs and tridents and Holm appeared to be whispering conspiratorially into the ear of the secretary, who in turn was responding with a resounding Dracula laugh: Muaaahaha.

Heloise skimmed the front page and then flipped through to the spread on pages four and five, where a more detailed examination of the case was printed.

Martin was named as the source.

A warm, bubbly sensation flowed through Heloise’s body as she saw his name in print. She had hardly thought of him in the twenty-four hours she had been away. Her thoughts had only revolved around her father, Anna, the story. But now she felt the urge to go home, a desire to start with a clean slate, to start over.

She pulled her phone out of the inside pocket of her black leather jacket and wrote a text.

Hi. On my way home. See you tonight?

He replied in less than a minute.

Tonight? What’s wrong with this afternoon?

Heloise smiled.

I’m boarding in a second and I’m reading the paper. Is your phone lighting up yet with calls from TV news show like Deadline?

Yup. It has been ringing off the hook. I’m on my way to the Danish Broadcasting Company studio right now. How about you? Are you okay?

Long story, but yes. I’m okay.

I miss you.

“What’s with the goofy smile?”

Heloise looked up at Schäfer, who had turned around in the line ahead of her and was eyeing her with an eyebrow raised.

“Nothing.”

“Is it the guy with the cuff links?”

“Shut up,” she said, and smiled.

Schäfer nodded in agreement. “You look lovestruck, Kaldan. Like maybe Cupid has started shooting hollow-points, the kind that do maximum damage.”