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over the years. I don’t know.”
    Felix nodded like he knew what she was talking about. “We’re past forty,” he said. “Doesn’t everything change then? Over and over? Doesn’t everything have to change over and over again? And when you face death all the time . . .”
    He took a sip of coffee, staring straight ahead. “Angelika,” he said, “used to be scared a lot. At night. Lying awake. But not anymore. Now she has the children.”
    Franza nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I know what you mean.”
    “The girl,” Felix said. “I gave her picture to the newspapers.”
    “Good,” Franza said. “Good.”

15
    The rippled surface of the Danube mirrored the trees on the bank. Occasionally, fish jumped in the clear waters along the edge. You could see rocks, sand, leaves, driftwood, and the shadows of the bushes at the bottom.
    Yellow dots sparkled in the green meadow, sometimes purple, poppies glowing, elder flowering.
    “Come!” Marie said. “Come here, my Ben!”
    A jogger wearing a burgundy-red T-shirt dashed along the water’s edge and was gone as fast as he’d come. Another came along, slower, exhausted. They heard his breathing, his steps. He gave them a nod, and they nodded back.
    “I used to come here a lot,” Marie said. “I loved it. The quiet, and that all you heard was the wind and the trees. And then the frogs croaking. Or the ducks. I can’t tell the difference.” She laughed.
    “Frogs,” Ben said, grinning. “They’re frogs, you city slicker!”
    “Is that so?” she laughed. “Country bumpkin!”
    He put his hand on her arm.
    “You’re nice, Ben,” she said in the middle of the kiss. “Will you come to Berlin with me? To wish me luck?”
    “Yes,” Ben said. “Of course. Of course I’ll come.”
    He leaned back and looked into the sun. Everything was clearer when Marie was around. She was clarity personified to him, clearing his mind, his feelings, his life.
    “I’m going to study biology,” he said. “And when I’m finished, I won’t get a job, because you can’t get a job with just a biology degree. My father is going to sell his practice because I’m not taking over, and then he will generously give me a monthly allowance, which will see us through while you’re becoming a famous actress. Someday you’ll make it big, and then you’ll bring home the money, and I’ll be a stay-at-home dad and raise our children, and I’ll bring them here regularly so that, when they’re older, they’ll know that frogs croak and ducks quack. By then, my father will have moved to Sweden. My mother will keep chasing murderers till the day she dies.”
    “Wow,” she said, grinning. “What a plan!” She pulled him to his feet. “Come on!” she cried, “Let’s jump into the water.”
    “What?” he squealed. “In the cold! Never!”
    He put up a fight, they wrestled. “Let go!” he said. “Way too cold.”
    “So what?” she said, certain of victory. “We’re wearing warm clothes!”
    She pushed and pulled to get him in, and it was as cold as he’d expected. “You frog!” he shouted, and she laughed.
    On the hill the yellow wheat rolled gently like an ocean, stretching far down toward the western bank.
    After they hung their clothes on the bushes to dry, and the shadows had dissolved into the black mass that was the Danube, they made love. Her hair fell onto his face, and he buried his nose in it; he closed his eyes and felt her touch, which was like foam on the dark river waters.

16
    The blood on the stones was the girl’s, DNA analysis confirmed. Traces of her blood were also found on the shoes.
    “Well!” the coroner said. “We have a young woman, early to mid twenties. Before the accident she would have been in relatively good health, maybe a bit malnourished, but that’s nothing unusual for a female that age.”
    He stopped, raised an eyebrow, and grinned suggestively as he glanced at Franza’s twenty pounds too many. She parried with an indifferent