“To your left, Detective,” said van Acker; he brought his own up to meet Mueller’s. Fichte eventually got hold of his and, spilling most of it on his pants, reached up to join them. “That’s very good, Detective,” said van Acker. He finished with the toast: “To finding one’s glass.”

Mueller and van Acker tossed theirs back. Fichte thought for a moment, let out a long breath, then placed his untasted back on the bar.

Mueller said, “Well, at least you tried.”

The last train to Berlin was set to leave Bruges in the next twenty minutes; it promised an eleven-o’clock arrival in Berlin tomorrow morning, and, with any luck, would get there by two. Still, it was quicker than waiting for first light; at best, Mueller could get Fichte to Berlin by early evening, and that was not accounting for weather or stops for fuel and oil. No, the train was the best bet. Van Acker had insisted. He had also used his pull with a certain transportation minister-a man whose wife had yet to learn about a young lady he was keeping in a lovely gabled house near the Begijnhof-to make sure that Fichte would have no trouble with any military delays at the German border.

Van Acker had come to this decision just after he and Fichte had stripped the asylum clean of every piece of paper having to do with Wouters: correspondence logs, visitor logs, psychiatric reports, staff interviews, medical files, the last of which had included details of Wouters’s eating and digestive habits-Fichte had been amazed to discover just how many varieties shit came in-all dating from the beginning of September. Plus, van Acker had taken them back via his office so as to pick up his personal case files on Wouters.

The train, though, was another matter. Fichte had wanted to send a wire to Berlin, just in case Hoffner had any other instructions. Van Acker had convinced him otherwise: better to bring all the necessary documents to Berlin by tomorrow morning than to lose valuable time to the drawn-out exchange of cables. “Don’t you agree, Detective?” Fichte had nodded quietly. The more he drank, however, the less he was looking forward to having to ask that question of Hoffner in person.

They had rounded up Mueller about an hour ago. Mueller, of course, had been disappointed to hear that he would be making the return flight solo, but once the invitation had been extended to join them for a few farewell drinks, all was forgiven.

“I still don’t see why you don’t come along,” said Fichte to van Acker. “Your case. You know the man better than anyone.” It was the first coherent thing Fichte had said in the last half-hour.

“I appreciate the offer,” van Acker said, “but not my jurisdiction. I had my chance.” He stared down at his glass. “I’m also guessing Herr Hoffner wouldn’t be that keen on the company.” Fichte tried to disagree, but van Acker continued: “I don’t want our friend back in Belgium,” he said with a sudden resolve. “And I don’t think you’ll want him in Germany, either.”

Fichte understood. Van Acker had failed to kill Wouters; he was telling Hoffner not to make the same mistake.

An amplified voice announced the train’s final boarding. Mueller tossed back Fichte’s untouched whiskey, and the three men headed out to the platform.

“They won’t wake you at the border,” van Acker said to Fichte as they walked. “I’ve seen to that.”

Fichte nodded his thanks.

Van Acker continued. “Tell Herr Hoffner-” He tried to find the words. “Tell him I would have loved the chance.”

The men stopped at the steps up to Fichte’s car, and, placing his valise on the platform, Fichte said, “My guess is, so would he, Monsieur Le Chef Inspecteur.” Van Acker appreciated the gesture. He said nothing.

“All right,” said Mueller impatiently. “If he’s going to be sleeping the whole way there, you and I’ll need to make up for his lack of commitment.”

Van Acker had known Mueller for less than an hour and was already a devotee. “One of us has a wife, Mueller,” said van Acker with a grin.

Mueller said, “Well, don’t look at me.”

The whistle blew, and Fichte gathered up his things. “I leave you in good hands, Chief Inspector,” he said. He shot a glance at Mueller. “Well, at least a few good fingers.”

Mueller laughed. He then turned to van Acker. “You do keep your pants on until the second course, don’t you, Inspector? Not like the Berlin boys?”

Fichte mounted the steps and van Acker said, “I’ll expect cables.” Fichte turned back and nodded. “Safe journey,” said van Acker. Another nod from Fichte. Van Acker then slapped Mueller on the back and started off. “Come on, Toby. I’ll introduce you to my wife.”

Fichte was out cold by the time the train had reached the outskirts of town.

At ten-thirty, Hoffner stopped by the wire room to send Sascha up to the attic for the night. It was too late for a cable now, not that he needed one to tell him what they had found. Anything other than Wouters would have caused a minor panic. Fichte, no doubt, had his hands full. Still, Hoffner would have liked to make sure that Fichte was loading them down with the right material. That, however, would have to wait for tomorrow.

It was nearly eleven, then, when Hoffner finally turned onto Kremmener Strasse.

He had long ago dispensed with the empty distinctions between character and weakness, at least when it came to decisions like these. To his mind, only men who claimed to have no choice struggled with those labels: to them, lack of choice granted a kind of freedom from consequence, or at least a softening of responsibility. Their angst, their wailing, their mea culpas of self-betrayal, all stemmed from that initial claim of powerlessness. Hoffner had never been that stupid or that impotent. He knew there was nothing inevitable about his seeing Lina. He was making the choice to venture back into the familiar of the unknown, and she was willingly inviting him in. Of course, had he seen Lina as anything more than that, he might have persuaded himself to hope for more, and that would have been dangerous. Hope fostered despair, and Hoffner had no desire for either.

The moon had broken through, and the houses melded into one another like a wide sheet of chalky gray stone. Lina’s building stood in the middle of the row, six wide steps leading up to its stoop, which boasted two flower boxes, each with a clump of frozen mud and a few gnarled twigs as reminders of some distant strains of life. Like the street itself, the boxes lay barren. Kremmener was one of the last outposts of the city’s Mitte district, a single street removed from the criminal haunts of Prenzlauer Berg. Ten years ago the gulf between the two would have been immeasurable; now it was a distinction only in name.

Lina had found a room on the top floor of Number 5, and although a woman living alone was far less of a shock these days-especially in this part of town-she had taken a roommate. Elise worked the coat-check room at the White Mouse. She was someone to know, according to Lina, a girl who was moving up. She was also rarely home before 2:00 a.m., and was infamous for forgetting her keys. A ring of the bell and the sound of scurrying feet up the stairs no longer drew the watchful eye of the landlord. He had grown fond of Elise and equally accustomed to her late-night, keyless returns.

Hoffner, with no inkling of a roommate, rang the bell anyway. He suspected that Lina had taken care of any possible awkwardness, and he was right. Two minutes into his wait, she appeared through the glass and opened the door. She was wearing a long lilac dressing gown that pretended to be silk, with tatty little ruffles at the sleeves and collar. On anyone else, they might have seemed vulgar; on her, they looked playful. She had kept her hair up, the tight ringlets along her forehead holding firm in a little row of Os that, from a certain angle, seemed to be oohing at him. She was wearing a bit more rouge than he remembered from this afternoon. Hoffner liked that.