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incredulous. “You couldn’t even walk into our office! If that dog’s staying, Eik’s going to have to move back to his old office.”
    “Not the dog. I’m talking about Eik offering to take care of it while his friend is dealing with his very unfortunate situation.”
    Ragner Rønholt closed his office door and gestured to her to drag the chair over to his desk. Louise could see he was finished talking about the dog.
    “I’m having second thoughts,” he began, looking a bit apologetic now. “I sent a case from Hvalsø over to you.”
    She broke in. “I’ve already talked to Mik.”
    “You’re too close to it,” he continued, ignoring her remark. “I was just thinking that coming back to a case would be good for you. You know, right back up on the horse, that sort of thing.”
    He was wringing his hands, so hard that Louise thought it must hurt.
    “But not in Hvalsø. Of course you shouldn’t be going back down there. Especially if the father of the missing boy is one of the…”
    He seemed to search, in vain, for the right words. “You’re too close,” he finally repeated. “I’ve told Olle to take over.”
    Louise studied her clenched hands. “You can’t do this,” she said. “I have no problem with working in Hvalsø.”
    And she meant that. She hadn’t seen Lars Frandsen in twenty years, and she could hardly imagine what he looked like now. Back then, he had been rangy with thick, light hair, round cheeks, and a broad nose that wiggled when he laughed. A happy boy with a certain status, he was the butcher’s son and lived in a large residential home on Præstegårdsvej, with an indoor pool and access to his parents’ bar in the basement, where there were pinball machines and a billiard table.
    Louise knew all of this because he was the guy Klaus hung out with the most back then. They had finished their apprenticeships at the same time, Lars with his father in Hvalsø, Klaus with the butcher over in Tølløse. When they attended butcher school in Roskilde, they took the morning train together, which was how Klaus had become part of Big Thomsen’s gang.
    “I just thought it might not be good for you to meet one of them after what happened,” Rønholt added in a nearly fatherly tone. “It’s better that I send one of the others to poke around.”
    Louise shook her head. “If anyone’s going to poke around over in Hvalsø, it should be me. It doesn’t bother me one bit to meet the butcher or anyone else there.”
    She gave him her stubborn look. “If I was that way, I couldn’t walk around Copenhagen for fear of running into someone from the Eastern European mafia, not to mention the gang members I’ve put behind bars. If I’m scared or have problems confronting people, I should go into private security instead of holding on to this lousy-paying job.”
    She paused for a moment, then leaned forward. “I’ll find that boy. Tell Olle the case is mine.”
    *  *  *
    She met Olle in the hallway as he walked down from their office, carrying the few case files that Mik had mailed them. “Welcome back!” he said, and spread his arms.
    He was about to keep chattering, so she broke in to tell him that Rønholt had changed his mind: She would continue with the case. “But it could very well be that we’ll need your help,” she added, smiling at her tall, balding colleague before walking past him.
    Louise was about to open the door to the Rathole when she remembered the dog. “Can I come in?” she called out. She felt like an idiot, standing there waiting for the green light to enter her own office.
    A moment later Eik said, “Come on in.”
    She hurried inside and sat down at her desk while Eik held the German shepherd’s collar with one hand and pushed three dog biscuits across her desk with the other.
    “Try giving him one,” he suggested.
    “Come on, Eik! You’re the one who has to deal with this dog. He shouldn’t be here. It’s not right that I can’t work without