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days. Over tea and sandwiches and a bit of intimate small talk in the kitchen, it emerged that she had taken the opportunity of making her sexual debut on Saturday night.
    About time, too: she was sixteen, well on the way to seventeen, and most of her girlfriends were way ahead of her in that respect. The unfortunate aspect was that she was not especially interested in the young boy in question – a certain Fritz Kümmerle, a promising central midfielder with a shot like Beckenbauer’s and a future staked out on football pitches all over Europe and indeed the world – and that they had made no attempt to take precautions.
    Plus that she had been somewhat intoxicated at the time. Due to red wine and other substances as well.
    Obviously it was mainly up to Maureen to look after her sobbing daughter, but even so Jung was aware – with a dubious feeling of satisfaction as well as of being an outsider – of the trust displayed in him simply by the fact that he was allowed to be present during the discussions. To be sure, he had known Sophie for four or five years by now, but nevertheless, he was no more than a plastic father.
    Perhaps it was not irrelevant that her real father was a shit father.
    Whatever, neither Jung nor Maureen nor the unhappy debutante had gone to bed before half past one.
    So he was a little on the tired side.
    Bonger’s canal boat didn’t seem to be in any better condition. Just as dilapidated as it had looked the previous day, Jung decided. He tugged at the bell rope several times without success, and looked around to see if there was any sign of life elsewhere on the dark canal. The woman on the boat next door seemed to be at home: a thin, grey wisp of smoke was floating up out of the chimney, and the bicycle was locked to the railings under the lime tree, in the same place as she had parked it yesterday. Jung walked over to her boat, announced his presence with a cough and tapped his bunch of keys on the black-painted rail that ran around the whole boat. After a few seconds she appeared in the narrow doorway. She was wearing a thick woollen jumper that reached down as far as her knees, high rubber boots and a beret. In one hand she was holding the gutted body of an animal – a hare, as far as Jung could tell. In her other hand, a carving knife.
    ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ said Jung.
    ‘Huh,’ said the woman. ‘It’s you again.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Jung. ‘Perhaps I should explain myself . . . I’m a police officer. Detective Inspector Jung. I’m looking for herr Bonger, as I said . . .’
    She nodded grumpily, and suddenly seemed to become aware of what she was holding in her hands.
    ‘Stew,’ she explained. ‘Andres bumped it off yesterday . . . My son, that is.’
    She held up the carcass, and Jung tried to give the impression of looking at it with the eye of a connoisseur.
    ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘We all end up like that eventually . . . But this Bonger – you don’t happen to have seen him, I suppose?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘Not since Saturday.’
    ‘Didn’t he come home last night, then?’
    ‘I very much doubt it.’
    She came up on deck and peered at Bonger’s boat.
    ‘No lights, no smoke,’ she said. ‘That means he’s not in, as I explained yesterday. Anything else you want to know?’
    ‘Does he often go away?’
    She shrugged.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, he isn’t often away for more than an hour or two. Why do you want to find him?’
    ‘Routine enquiries,’ said Jung.
    ‘And what the hell is that supposed to mean?’ said the woman. ‘I’m not an idiot, you know.’
    ‘We just want to ask him a few questions.’
    ‘What about?’
    ‘You don’t seem to be too fond of the police,’ said Jung.
    ‘Too right I’m not,’ said the woman.
    Jung thought for a moment.
    ‘It’s about a death,’ he explained. ‘One of Bonger’s friends has been murdered. We think Bonger might have some information that could be useful for us.’
    ‘Murder?’ said