“Do I know it? I wrote my master’s thesis on Oscar Wilde. The quote’s from The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde’s tribute to youth, his satirical skewering of the vanity of his era.”

A crash sounded in the background, as if a dish had fallen and broken.

“Gregers, what was that?” Esther exclaimed. “Oh dear, we had a little accident here. Gregers dropped a glass and now there are shards and milk all over. Dóxa, no! Jeppe, can we talk later? Or do you have time to meet?”

“Thank you, Esther. Tomorrow afternoon? Maybe around five?”

“Yes, just come on over!”

By the time Jeppe hung up, his coffee was cold. He threw away the cup and looked over the table at Anette, who was also wrapping up a phone call. She waved at him impatiently.

“Sure, Søndre Frihavn, got it! We’ll be right there.” Anette removed the phone from her ear. “That was Dispatch. Oscar’s backpack has been found on a boat dock a few hundred meters from the family’s apartment.”

“How do we know it’s his?”

“His name is in it,” Anette said. “The forensic specialists are on their way. Let’s go!” She clapped her hands as if hurrying a child along.

Jeppe got up and grabbed his jacket with a rush of the energy that his coffee had not yielded. A clue!

CHAPTER 5

Anette leaned forward in the driver’s seat and looked past the parking lot’s modern yellow-brick buildings toward the water. A group of rumbling motorcycles sped around a corner nearby, probably on their way back to the city from the traditional biker ice cream place at the end of Langelinie Pier. The air was buzzing with weekend vibes and people doing pleasantly purposeless things.

She and Jeppe got out of the car and walked toward Søndre Frihavn’s little marina. Anette hung back slightly, feeling a pang of guilt at the sight of families having fun. But Svend, Gudrun, and the family weekend would have to wait. That was part and parcel of policework: she didn’t get to enjoy time off with her own kid when someone else’s kid had been abducted.

A narrow ramp led them from the quay down to the dock. They walked past sailboats, houseboats, and yachts with inflatable swim toys secured to the deck.

“Hey, ladies, how’s it hanging?” Anette waved to the forensics crew.

Clausen, the crime scene technician, a wrinkled, balding fifty-nine-year-old man, looked about as far away from being a lady as one could get. But he shared her old-school sense of humor.