“Well, for starters, there’s no indication that he was anything but a nice guy—as nice a guy as any lawyer can be, that is.” Schäfer’s gaze fell on the salad. “Say, is that what you eat when you’re famished? A little fruit salad and a lump of cheese? No meat, no bread—nothing?”

Heloise shrugged. “I’m not a big fan of meat.”

Schäfer wrinkled his nose in disapproval. Then he shook his head and continued. “Anyways. Mossing was a criminal defense lawyer, so he obviously represented a lot of assholes—rich assholes, mind you—and he was good at it too.”

“Then there must have been a lot of people who had a grudge against him. His competitors, for example. Wouldn’t a man like him have a lot of enemies?”

“Oh, there were a lot of people who didn’t like him for a variety of reasons. But there was only one who murdered him.”

Heloise thought as she chewed. “Is it really true that after the murder she stood in front of the security camera in his driveway and stared into the lens for several minutes?”

“Mm-hmm.” Schäfer took a swig of the beer without taking his eyes off her.

“And there’s no chance that you’re wrong? That Anna Kiel was framed and that someone is just trying to make it look like she’s the murderer?”

“If we imagine that someone forced her into the house against her will, killed Christoffer Mossing while she protested, planted her fingerprints on the murder weapon, and covered her in his blood, then yes.”

“Hmm.”

Schäfer shook his head. “Let me put it like this: I would be amazed if we were wrong.”

Heloise nodded hesitantly. “But why in the world did she do it?” she asked.

“Why did she do any of it? Why did she kill him, why did she gaze enigmatically into the camera, and why is she sending you letters now, so long after the fact—assuming that the letters really are from her, that is?”

“Don’t you have any theories?” Heloise asked. “About the motive, I mean.”

“Nothing concrete. Maybe the voices in her head made her do it; maybe she had seen Mossing on the street or in line at the grocery store and deluded herself into believing he was a threat to be eliminated. She must have had some reason to do what she did, but there doesn’t seem to have been a rational reason. As I’m sure you read in the tabloids’ coverage of the case, Anna had been ill for a long time, and a number of different school psychologists confirmed that she was a deeply troubled young woman who had shown signs of psychopathy at an early age. They don’t call it that anymore, by the way—now it’s called ‘antisocial personality disorder,’—but whatever you name it, it’s still a real shit show.”