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sat for a long time looking through the binoculars, observing the children running around in the garden beside the farmhouse during their breaks from home schooling. The girl he had selected seemed to be up to something in a corner beneath some trees. Something not intended to be seen by the others. For some time she remained occupied, kneeling in the tall grass. This confirmed to him what a good choice she was.
    Whatever she was doing, her mother and the Church would not approve, he thought to himself with a nod of acknowledgment. God always puts the best of his flock to the test, and twelve-year-old Magdalena, this girl soon to become a young woman, was no exception.
    He watched for another hour or two, reclining inside the van, keeping his eye on the farmhouse that nestled in the bend of the road at Stanghede. Through the binoculars he could clearly see a pattern emerging in the girl’s behavior. Every time the children were given a break, she would seek her own company in her corner of the garden, and when her mother called them in for their next lesson, she would cover up whatever it was she had been occupied with.
    All things considered, being an almost grown-up girl in a family that had devoted itself to the Mother Church entailed no small amount of deference. Dance, music, printed matter issuing from sources other than the Church, alcohol, social intercourse with individuals outside the community, pets, television, the Internet—all these things were forbidden, and punishment for consistent disobedience was harsh: ostracism from both the family and the Church.
    He drove away before the boys came home, satisfied with his choice of family. Now he would examine the father’s company accounts and personal tax returns one last time before resuming his observations the next morning.
    Soon, there would be no turning back, and he was content at the thought.

    Her name was Isabel, this woman who now housed him, though she was hardly as exotic as her name. Swedish crime novels on the shelves and Anne Linnet on the CD player. This was the straight and narrow.
    He looked at his watch. She could be home in half an hour, but there was plenty of time to check whether any unpleasant surprises might be in store. He sat down at her desk and switched on her laptop, growled audibly when it asked for a password. He tried six or seven combinations in vain before lifting the desk-protector to discover a comprehensive list of Internet passwords. It was always the same: women such as Isabel either used birthdays, the names of their children or dogs, phone numbers, orsimply a straight sequence of digits, often in descending order, or they wrote down their passwords and concealed them no more than a couple of meters from the keyboard so they could read them without getting up.
    He read her dating correspondence and noted to his satisfaction that in him she had found the man she had been seeking for some time. Perhaps he was a couple of years younger than she had imagined, but what woman would decline?
    He went through her e-mail contacts on Outlook. One of them was a regular correspondent. His name was Karsten Jønsson. A brother, perhaps, or the ex-husband. It wasn’t important. The significant thing was the suffix of his e-mail address: police.dk.
    Not good, he thought to himself. When the time came, he would have to refrain from violence and instead make do with verbal abuse or simply leave his dirty laundry around the house, which according to her online dating profile was one of her major turn-offs.
    He fished the little BlueTinum flash drive out of his pocket and stuck it into the USB port. Skype account and contacts, all at once. Then he typed his wife’s mobile number.
    She would be shopping at this time. Always the same routine. He would suggest she buy champagne and put it in the fridge, ready.
    At the tenth ring, he frowned. She had never failed to answer before. If there was one thing his wife clung to, it was that mobile of