“I wasn’t there,” Abel said. “I wish I could feel relief … he’s never gonna bother us again. But I wasn’t there.”

“At the Admiral?”

He nodded. He didn’t ask the question that needed to be asked. He didn’t ask, Do you believe me?

“You need an alibi,” Anna said. “I left your apartment on Saturday night, a little after midnight.”

“No,” Abel whispered and turned to her. “You didn’t. It was much earlier.”

“No, it was past midnight,” Anna insisted. “I remember how I looked at my watch and thought, it’s already twelve thirty … and if my parents imagined that I was home earlier, then I guess they were mistaken.”

He shook his head, slowly. “No,” he repeated. “No. My alibi is my business.”

And then he did something absolutely unexpected. He pulled her close and held her for a moment, so tight she thought she could feel every single bone in his body. And somewhere between them, she felt his heart beating, fast and nervous. Hunted. He let go of her before the hug became a real hug, left her standing there, and fled from the tower. Anna balled up the paper and threw it in the wastebasket.

When Linda came home that afternoon, Anna was sitting on a folding chair in the snow-covered garden, listening to the birds. She was wearing her winter coat but no hat, and white snow crystals, which the wind had brought down from the roof, were blooming in her dark hair. The snow had stopped falling at midday; the world was very quiet, apart from the twitter of the birds in the rosebushes.

Linda stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her daughter. Anna was sitting as motionless as a statue, a work of art someone had installed in the garden, like a birdbath maybe, a birdbath in the shape of a seated girl. Linda stepped forward and put a hand on the statue’s shoulder, and the statue jumped and turned back into a girl. And all the robins flew away.

“Have you been sitting here for a long time?” Linda asked.

“I don’t know,” Anna said, looking up. Her lips were blue from the cold. Even her eyebrows were laced with snow crystals.

“Come inside?” Linda asked. She didn’t command; she asked. “Have a cup of coffee with me. Tell me … if you want to … tell me, what happened.”

“Nothing,” Anna said. “Nothing has happened. I’m just thinking … I’m still thinking about that article … Chicago … the man who was beaten to death. I wonder … I wonder how furious you would have to be to kill someone and if you can do it with your fists or … or if one fist is enough, because you can’t use the other one … I wonder how somebody dies then … I mean, even if he’s deserved it …” She got up and followed Linda inside, and Linda took Anna’s coat off with gentle hands.

“You’re ice-cold,” she said. “Anna, this man … he didn’t die from a fistfight. It wasn’t in the paper but … well, I shouldn’t be telling you this, I guess.”

“What—what did he die from then? How come you …?”

Linda turned away and put the kettle on.

“The husband of a colleague of mine works in the forensics department. She told me. I don’t know why they didn’t give this information in the newspaper … maybe the police have their reasons for not saying … but I’ll tell you. He died instantly. He was shot.”

Anna grabbed her mother’s arm and saw the surprise in Linda’s eyes. “Shot? Are you sure?”

Linda nodded. “From behind, she said. A shot in the neck. He didn’t suffer. I just want you to know that.”

Anna looked at her watch. “Oh no. I almost forgot that I promised Gitta to … I have to go, I’m sorry,” she said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

Linda shook her head while Anna put her coat back on. “I haven’t even made the coffee.”

“Then go ahead and make it now,” Anna said. “I won’t be gone long.”

She knew Linda was standing at the window, watching her ride away, watching her teeter as her bike wheels slid in the snow that was turning to ice on the road. Linda had always wanted another child, but it hadn’t worked out. After Anna, all her pregnancies had dissolved into nothingness, each and every one of the possible children shifting from nearly being to not being—too soon for Linda to get used to a presence, but late enough to feel its loss. She feared for Anna, always had—from her first step—and Anna knew it. This made life difficult. Linda tried to conceal her fear, by not controlling Anna, by not asking her where she went, by not ordering her around, by saying she thought it was a great idea to go to England for a year, that it was great she wanted to study in a different city. Though if it had been up to Linda, she would have tucked Anna into a small pocket, lined with soft fabric, next to her heart, where she would be safe and warm and nothing would ever happen to her. Like Abel would have done with Micha, if he could have, Anna thought, surprised by this thought: Abel. You’re just like Linda.

She rang the doorbell three times before he opened. He was wearing a faded T-shirt and his hair was messy—messier than usual—as if he had just gotten out of bed or toweled himself off after showering. Two of the tiny cuts next to his eye had opened and were glistening, wet and red.

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” Anna asked without any introduction.

“What? No,” Abel said. “Do you need to find someone who does?”

“No. You’re sure you don’t know?” she asked. “And that you don’t have a weapon, either?”

“No!” he repeated. She thought he would step back to let her in. He didn’t. He stepped forward and almost pulled the door closed behind him. He was shivering in his thin T-shirt, she could see. “Why are you asking me this?” he said.

“If you’re telling the truth, you’re safe,” Anna said. “He was shot. Rainer was shot. My mother knows someone in the forensics department. He was shot in the neck; he wasn’t beaten to death.”

Slowly, very slowly, a smile started to broaden on his face.

“Thank God,” he said. “I’ve never been so glad that somebody was shot.”

For a while they were standing there in the cold staircase. Then his smile disappeared. “But I can’t really prove that I don’t know how to shoot a gun,” he said. “Can I? I mean, it’s hard to prove that you can’t do something.”

“Why would you have to prove that?” She nearly started to laugh.

“They will think it was me,” he said in a low voice. “Despite everything.” He glanced back at the apartment.

“Micha?” she asked. “Is she not supposed to hear what we’re talking about? Haven’t you told her …?”

“Micha’s on a field trip with her school.” He folded his arms across his chest, as if this would protect him from the cold. Or possibly, from something else. On his upper-left arm she saw a shiny round red spot, like a burn. It looked new. It looked like a cigarette burn. He saw what she was looking at and put his hand over the wound.

“Abel …” she began, “do we have to stay out here on the landing?”

He shook his head. “No. You have to go home. You don’t belong here. You’ll catch cold.”

“It’s warmer in your apartment.”

“Anna,” he said, his voice even lower than before, and very insistent. “I don’t have time now.” He seemed to be listening for something, straining his ears in the direction of the apartment.

“You’ve got a visitor,” she said.

“Someone I owe money to.”

“I could lend you …”

“Please,” he said. “Go.”

For a moment, he hesitated. As if he would prefer to stay on the landing, forever. But finally, he smoothed back his hair and turned to go. He closed the door behind him, with a click.

Anna kicked the tires of her bike because there wasn’t anything else to kick. The voices of children shouting abuse at one another came from the first floor. Anna was pretty sure Mrs. Ketow was watching her again, but she didn’t care. Who was with Abel? It’s none of my business, she told herself. It definitely isn’t. I’m interfering, and he was right. I don’t belong here.