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been reduced to a gray fuzz, an indistinct figure without any distinguishing features.
    “Precision is my subject,” she heard the shapeless face continue. “In every detail. Good police work means placing one stone on top of another with the utmost precision. If I’m sloppy . . . if any of my men overlook a single hair, miss by a minute, take the smallest shortcut because we believe we know something that strictly speaking we can’t be sure of yet, then . . .”
    Bang.
    He clapped his hands together and Johanne put her glasses on again.
    “So we’re not doing too well,” he added quietly. “And to be honest, I’m getting a bit sick of it.”
    This had nothing to do with her. It was none of her business if a middle-age detective from the NCIS was sick of his job. The man was obviously having an existential crisis and it had absolutely nothing to do with her.
    “Not of the job, per se,” he suddenly added, and offered her a candy. “Not at all. Here, have one. Does it smell of cigar smoke in here? Should I open a window?”
    She shook her head and smiled faintly.
    “No, it smells nice.”
    He smiled back. He was good-looking. Good-looking in a nearly extreme way; his nose was too straight, too big. His eyes were too deep, too blue. His mouth was too sharp, too well formed. Adam Stubo was too old to have such a white smile.
    “You must be wondering why I wanted to talk to you,” he said cheerfully. “When you corrected me earlier . . . corrected the essence of a crime to the essence of a criminal , you hit the nail on the head. That’s what it’s about.”
    “I don’t understand . . .”
    “Just wait.”
    He turned to the photograph of the horse.
    “Sabra here,” he said, clasping his hands behind his head, “is a good, old-fashioned riding horse. You can put a five-year-old on her and she trots off with a careful step. But when I ride her . . . wow! I raced with her for years. Mostly for fun, of course; I was never particularly good. The point is . . .”
    Suddenly he leaned toward her; she could smell a hint of candy on his breath. Johanne was not entirely certain whether this sudden intimacy was comfortable or repulsive. She moved back.
    “I’ve heard people say that horses don’t see color,” he continued. “They may well be right. But no matter what they say, Sabra hates everything that is blue. And she doesn’t like the rain, she loves wild mares, is allergic to cats, and is far too easily distracted by cars with big engines.”
    He hesitated a moment, tilted his head a touch before continuing.
    “The point is that I could always explain her results. Based on who she is. As . . . as a horse. If she pulled down a fence, I didn’t need to do an in-depth analysis, like other people and more serious jockeys did. I knew . . .”
    He looked up at the picture.
    “I could see it in her eyes. Her soul, if you like. In her character. Based on how I know she is.”
    Johanne wanted to say something. She should make some comment or another.
    “That’s not the way we work here,” he said before she could think of anything. “We go the other way.”
    “I’ve still got no idea what this has to do with me.”
    Adam Stubo folded his hands again, this time as if in prayer, and then lowered them slowly onto the blotter.
    “Two abducted children and two devastated families. My people have already sent over forty different tests to the laboratories. We have several hundred photographs of crime scenes. We’ve gathered so many witness statements that you’d get a headache just hearing the number. Nearly sixty men are working on the case, or to be more precise, the cases . And I’m afraid it’s gotten me nowhere. I want to know more about the perpetrator . That’s why I need you.”
    “You need a profiler,” she said slowly.
    “Exactly. I need you.”
    “No,” she said a bit too loudly. “It’s not me that you need.”
    In a row house in Bærum, a woman looked at her watch. Time was out of