Heloise stood up and carried the coffee cups over to the kitchen sink and the tower of dirty dishes that were already there.

“There’s another investigative journalist on my team,” she said. “Mogens Bøttger. He’s really good, and you can trust him.”

“Okay.”

Martin was on his way over to her when he noticed something on the floor.

He bent down and picked it up.

“ ‘Sergeant Detective Erik Schäfer, Copenhagen Police, Violent Crimes Unit,’ ” he read aloud, and gave Heloise a questioning look. “Why do you have this lying around?”

Heloise hesitated for a moment. Then she shook her head and shooed him out of the kitchen.

“I’ll tell you about that later. First we need to see if we can catch Mogens at the paper.”

Martin’s hand found hers on the ride up to the third floor. Heloise pulled her hand away as soon as the elevator doors opened.

“It’s this way,” she said, leading him down the editorial office’s hallway.

“Is this where you work every day?” He peered around.

Heloise nodded. “Well, I stop by almost every day,” she clarified. “I do most of my work out in the world, meeting with sources, visits to various archives—you know, generally sniffing around in places where I’m not wanted. The people’s watchdog and all that.”

Seeing Martin here at the paper felt strange and far more intimate than lying in bed with him at home had. It was as if the whole building were holding its breath, as if the portraits of the old editors in chief were following them with their eyes as they walked down the hallway.

They found Bøttger sitting in his usual spot, leaning back with his legs crossed, propped up on his desk. He was busy impressing a young intern, who was standing in front of him hugging a case file, with an anecdote from his life as a prizewinning reporter. When he saw Heloise approaching, he instantly lost interest in the young woman and shooed her away.

Heloise stopped at her own desk and raised her eyebrows as she watched the woman walk away. Then she turned her attention to Bøttger.

“You do know you’re supposed to keep your mitts off the interns, don’t you, Mogens?”

“What, her? Please,” he scoffed. “I’d hoped you would think more highly of me than that, Kaldan.”

Heloise decided to drop the collegial teasing—a game they both really enjoyed playing and would normally keep at for hours.

Heloise pointed to Martin beside her. “Mogens, I’d like to introduce you to Martin Duvall.”

Bøttger stood up and held out a hairy paw the size of a baseball mitt.

“Hi,” he said. “Mogens.”

“Martin Duvall.”

“Martin is the head of communications at the Ministry of Commerce,” Heloise explained. “Or rather, he was up until a few days ago. He just quit.”

“Oh?”