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“Okay, but then it ought to smell MORE of smoke. There’s no smell of it anywhere else in the apartment, so it’s almost as if someone has… I don’t know, aired the closet somehow? ”

“How would that be possible? ”

Jack doesn’t answer, just moves through the space hunting for the draft he initially thought he had imagined. Suddenly he picks up a stepladder that’s lying on the floor, shoves a pile of clothes out of the way, climbs up the steps, and starts hitting the ceiling with the flat of his hand until something gives way.

“There’s some sort of old air vent up here! ”

Jim doesn’t have time to respond before Jack sticks his head through the hole. Jim takes the opportunity to shake the wine bottles he found in the chest, and takes a swig out of one that isn’t quite empty. Because wine doesn’t go bad, either.

Jack calls from up the ladder: “There’s a narrow passageway up here, above the false ceiling, I think the draft’s coming from the attic. ”

“A passageway? Big enough to crawl through and get out somewhere else? ” Jim wonders.

“God knows, it’s very narrow, but someone slim could probably… hold on…”

“Can you see anything? ”

“I’m trying to shine the torch to see where it leads, but there’s something in the way… something… fluffy. ”

“Fluffy? ” Jim repeats anxiously, thinking about all the animals Jack probably wouldn’t want to discover dead in a ventilation duct. Jack doesn’t like most animals even when they’re alive.

Jack curses, pulls the thing out, and tosses it down to Jim. It’s a rabbit’s head.

Roger glanced over the balcony railing at the police, then took a deep breath and shouted: “We need supplies! ”

“Medical? Are you hurt? ” one of the police officers called back. His name was Jim, his hearing wasn’t great, and he hadn’t experienced many hostage situations before. Or any at all, if we’re being strictly correct.

“No! We’re hungry! ” Roger shouted.

“Angry? ” the policeman yelled.

There was another police officer, a younger one, standing next to him. He was trying to shut the older one up so he could hear what Roger was saying, but of course the older one wasn’t listening.

“NO! PIZZA! ” Roger yelled, but because he had cotton stuffed in both nostrils unfortunately it sounded more like “pisser. ”

“MELISSA? SOMEONE CALLED MELISSA IS INJURED? ” the older police officer shouted.

“YOU’RE NOT LISTENING! ”

“WHAT? ”

“BE QUIET, DAD, SO I CAN HEAR WHAT HE’S SAYING! ” the younger officer shouted at the older police officer down in the street, but by then Roger had already left the balcony in frustration. He hadn’t actually sworn that much since a group of damn activists had changed the name of his favorite chocolate bars because the old name was regarded as insulting to someone or other. He stomped back inside the apartment and waved his notepad and IKEA pencil in the air.

“We’ll make a list and throw it down, ” he declared. “What sort of pizza does everyone want? You first! ” he demanded, pointing at the bank robber.

“Me? Oh, I don’t really mind. Anything will do, ” the bank robber piped up feebly.

“Are you hard of thinking or something? Just make a decision for once! No one’s going to respect you otherwise! ” Zara exclaimed from the sofa (where she had only sat down after first fetching a towel from the bathroom to put between her and the cushion, because heaven only knew what sort of individuals had sat there before her. They probably had tattoos and goodness only knew what else).

“I can’t decide, ” the bank robber said, which were probably the truest words the bank robber had uttered all day. When you’re a child you long to be an adult and decide everything for yourself, but when you’re an adult you realize that’s the worst part of it. That you have to have opinions all the time, you have to decide which party to vote for and what wallpaper you like and what your sexual preferences are and which flavor yogurt best reflects your personality. You have to make choices and be chosen by others, every second, the whole time. That was the worst thing about getting divorced, in the bank robber’s opinion, the fact that you thought you were done with all that, but now you had to start making decisions about everything again. We already had wallpaper and crockery, the balcony furniture was almost new, and the children were about to start swimming lessons. We had a life together, wasn’t that enough? The bank robber had reached a point in life where everything felt… complete, at last. Which means that you’re in no fit state to be thrown out into the wilderness to find out who you are all over again. The bank robber tried to make sense of all these thoughts, but didn’t have time before Zara interrupted again.

“You need to make demands! ”

Roger agreed. “She’s actually right. If you don’t, the police will get nervous, and that’s when they start shooting. I’ve seen a documentary about it. If you take hostages, you have to tell them what you want so they can start to negotiate. ”

The bank robber replied unhappily and honestly: “I want to go home to my children. ”

Roger took this under consideration for a while. Then he said: “I’ll put down a capricciosa for you, everyone likes capricciosa. Next! What sort would you like? ”

He was looking at Zara now. She seemed to be in a state of total shock.

“Me? I don’t eat pizza. ”

When Zara went to a restaurant she always ordered shellfish, and made it very clear that she wanted them served with the shells intact, because then she could be sure that no one in the kitchen had touched the insides. If the restaurant didn’t have any shellfish, Zara ordered boiled eggs. She hated berries, but liked bananas and coconuts. Her idea of hell was a never-ending buffet with her stuck in the queue behind someone who had a cold.

“Everyone’s having pizza! Besides, it’s free! ” Roger clarified, with a badly timed sniffle.

Zara wrinkled her nose and the rest of her face followed suit.

“People eat pizza with their hands. The same hands they use to renovate apartments. ”

But of course Roger didn’t back down, just looked in turn at Zara’s handbag, shoes, and wristwatch, then scribbled something on his pad.

“I’ll say you want whatever the most expensive one is, will that do? Maybe they’ve got something with truffle, gold leaf, and some sort of endangered baby turtle on it, like some ridiculous stuck-up marinara. Next! ”

Estelle looked worried about having to decide so quickly, so she exclaimed: “I’ll have the same as Zara. ”

Roger peered at her, then wrote “capricciosa” on his pad.

Then it was Ro’s turn, and her face took on an expression that only a mother or a manufacturer of defibrillators could love.

“A kebab pizza with garlic sauce! Extra sauce. And extra kebab. Preferably a bit charred. Hang on, I’ll go and see what Jules would like! ”

She banged on the closet door.

“What is it? ” Julia yelled.

“We’re ordering pizza! ” Ro cried.

“I want a Hawaiian without pineapple and without ham, but with banana and peanuts instead, and tell them not to cook it for too long! ”

Ro took such a deep breath that her back creaked. She leaned closer to the door.

“Can’t you have a pizza from the menu just for once, darling? A nice, normal pizza? Why do I always have to call and give them a set of instructions like I’m trying to help a blind person land a plane? ”

“And extra cheese if it’s good cheese! Ask if they have good cheese! ”

“Why can’t you just have something off the menu like a normal person? ”

It wasn’t entirely clear if Julia had failed to hear what Ro said, or if she was ignoring her, because she yelled back from inside the closet: “And olives! Not green ones, though! ”

“That isn’t a Hawaiian, ” Ro muttered very quietly to herself.

“Of course it is! ”

Roger did his best to note all that down. Then the closet door opened and Julia peered out, then said out of the blue in a friendly voice:

“Anna-Lena says she’ll have the same as you, Roger. ”

Roger nodded slowly, looking down at his pad. He had to go out into the kitchen so that no one saw him write a new note, because the first one was impossible to write on when it was wet. When he got back to the living room the rabbit raised his hand timidly.

“I’d like a—” the voice said from inside the head.

“Capricciosa! ” Roger interrupted, blinking away the tears and giving the rabbit a look that said this wasn’t the time to be vegetarian or any other crap like that, so the rabbit just nodded and mumbled: “I can take the ham off, no problem, that’s fine. ”

Then Roger looked around for something heavy enough to attach the note to, and eventually found a round object that seemed just the right density. That was how the police came to hear someone shout from the balcony again, and when Jack looked up, a lime hit him on the forehead.

From that distance, that makes one hell of a bump.

Jack only manages to slither halfway into the space above the closet. Then Jim has to climb the ladder and pull on both his feet as hard as he can, as if his son were a rat who had crawled into a soda bottle to drink the contents and had become too fat to squeeze out again. When Jack finally comes loose, the two of them fall to the floor, Jim with a crash and Jack with a thud. They lie there sprawled on the closet floor, surrounded by women’s underwear from the last century and with the rabbit’s head rolling around, sending the dust balls fleeing in fear of their lives. Jack embarks upon another verbal demonstration of his knowledge of farmyard anatomy, before getting to his feet and saying: “Well, there’s a very narrow old ventilation duct up there, but it’s sealed at the far end. Cigarette smoke might blow out, but there’s no way anyone could get through there. Not a chance. ”

Jim looks unhappy, mostly because Jack looks so unhappy. The father remains standing in the closet for a while after his son storms out, to give him time to walk a few circuits of the living room and get the swearing out of his system. When Jim eventually walks out he finds Jack standing in front of the open fireplace, thinking.

“Do you think the bank robber could have got out this way? ” Jim wonders.

“Do you think he’s Santa Claus or something? ” Jack answers, with unnecessary cruelty that he regrets at once. But there’s ash at the bottom of the grate, and it’s still warm—there’s been a fire here fairly recently. When Jack carefully pokes about with his flashlight, he fishes out the remains of a ski mask. He holds it up to the light. Looks at the blood on the floor and the furniture around him, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

In the meantime Jim wanders about apparently at random, and finds himself in the kitchen, where he opens the fridge (which perhaps indicates that it wasn’t entirely random after all). There’s leftover pizza in there, on a china plate, carefully covered with clingwrap. Who would do that, in the middle of a hostage drama? Jim shuts the fridge and returns to the living room. Jack is still standing by the fireplace holding the partially burned ski mask in his hand, his shoulders slumped in resignation.

“No, I can’t see how he got out of the apartment, Dad. I’ve tried looking at it from every possible and impossible angle, but I still don’t understand how the hell…”

Jack suddenly looks so sad that his dad immediately tries to cheer him up by asking questions.

“What about the blood? How can the bank robber have lost this much blood and still—? ” Jim begins, but is interrupted by a voice from the hall. It’s the police officer who’s been standing guard.

“Er, that isn’t the bank robber’s blood, ” he blurts out cheerfully, picking something from his teeth.

“What? ” Jack asks.

“Schusssschfnurschulle, ” the officer says, with almost his entire hand stuck in his mouth, as if the blood were nowhere near as important as the souvenir from his lunch that had gotten stuck in there. The hand reemerges with a piece of cashew nut, and the newly liberated mouth laughs and looks remarkably happy.

“Sorry? ” Jim says, with rapidly dwindling patience.

The cheerful police officer points at the dried blood on the floor.

“I said: that’s stage blood. Look at the way it’s drying, real blood doesn’t look like that, ” he says, holding the piece of cashew nut as if he’s unsure whether to throw it away or frame it as a memory of this great personal achievement.

“How do you know that? ” Jim asks him.

“I’m a bit of a magician in my spare time. Well, to be more accurate, I’m a bit of a policeman in my spare time! ”

His expectation that Jim and Jack are going to laugh at that turns out to be an optimistic prognosis, so he coughs rather forlornly and adds: “I do a few shows, stuff like that. Old people’s homes and so on. Sometimes I pretend to cut myself, and then I use stage blood. I’m quite good, actually. If you’ve got a pack of cards on you, I can…”

Jack, who has never looked like he just happened to “have a pack of cards on him” at any time in his life, points at the blood.

“So you’re quite sure this isn’t real blood? ”

The police officer nods confidently.

Jack and Jim look thoughtfully at each other. Then they each switch their flashlights on, even though the ceiling lights are already on, and start to go through the apartment, inch by inch. Around and around and around. Staring at everything but still seeing nothing. There’s a bowl of limes next to the pizza boxes on the table. All the glasses are neatly placed on coasters. There’s a marker on the floor to indicate where the police found the bank robber’s pistol. Right beside it is a small table with a small lamp on it.

“Dad? The phone we sent in for the perpetrator, where did we find it when we came in? ” Jack suddenly asks.

“It was there, on that little table, ” Jim says.

“That explains it, ” Jack sighs.

“Explains what? ”

“We’ve been thinking about this wrong all along. ”

Witness Interview

Date: December 30

Name of witness: “Jules” and “Ro”

JACK: Because you’re witnesses to such a serious offense as this, I really must insist on being able to speak to you separately rather than both at the same time.

JULES: Why?

JACK: Because that’s just the way it is.

JULES: Sorry, but has your body been taken over by a demon that sounds like my mother? What do you mean, “just the way it is”?

JACK: You’re witnesses in a criminal investigation. There are rules.

JULES: Is either of us suspected of committing a crime, then?

JACK: No.

JULES: Well, then. Then we’ll do this together. You know why?

JACK: No.

JULES: Because that’s just the way it is!

JACK: Christ, if there’s ever been a more difficult group of witnesses, I have no idea where that could have been.

JULES: Excuse me?

JACK: I didn’t say anything.

JULES: Yes you did, I heard you muttering.

JACK: It was nothing. Okay, you win, you can do this together!

RO: Jules is just worried I’ll say something stupid if she isn’t here.

JULES: Quiet now, darling.

RO: See?

JACK: For God’s sake, don’t you two ever stop babbling? I said okay! I’ll interview you both at the same time! But this isn’t how it’s supposed to work!

RO: Do you have to be so angry?

JACK: I’m not angry!

RO: Okay.

JULES: Yeah, right.

JACK: I need your real names.

RO: These are our real names.

JACK: They’re nicknames, surely?

JULES: Please, can’t you just focus on the interview? It doesn’t really matter, does it? I need to go to the toilet.

JACK: Okay, okay, sure. Because “what’s your name? ” is a really complicated question.

JULES: Stop muttering and just ask your questions.

JACK: Right, I’m just a police officer, so obviously it’s perfectly reasonable for you to decide what goes on in here.

JULES: What?

JACK: Nothing. I just need to confirm that the two of you were inside the apartment for the entirety of the hostage situation. Were you?

RO: I don’t know about “hostage situation. ” That sounds very harsh.

JULES: Please, Ro, pull yourself together now. What do you think we were if we weren’t hostages? Accidentally threatened with a pistol?

RO: We were more just an unfortunate consequence of some bad decisions.

JULES: Because someone tripped and happened to slip inside a ski mask?

JACK: Please, can you both just try to focus on my question?

JULES: Which one?

JACK: Were you inside the apartment the whole time?

RO: Jules was in the hobby room for quite a long time.

JULES: It’s not a hobby room!

RO: Closet, then. Stop being picky.

JULES: You know perfectly well what it’s called.

JACK: You were in the closet? How long for? I mean, how long before you came out of the closet?

JULES: What did you just say?

JACK: I mean, well, no, that’s not what I mean.

JULES: Right. So what exactly did you mean, then?

JACK: Nothing. I didn’t mean “come out of the closet” in any way except in relation to the fact that you were physically inside a… well, a closet.

JULES: We were in the apartment the whole time.

RO: Why do you sound so angry?

JULES: Maybe it’s the hormones, Ro? Is that what you’re trying to say?

RO: No, it really isn’t. Well, I certainly didn’t actually say that, in which case it doesn’t count.

JACK: I appreciate that you’ve had a difficult day, but I’m just trying to understand where everyone was at various times. For instance, when the pizzas were delivered.

RO: Why’s that important?

JACK: That’s the last time we know for certain that the perpetrator was in the apartment.

RO: I was sitting on the chaise longue when we had the pizza.

JACK: What’s that?

JULES: That bit at the end of the sofa. Kind of like a divan.

RO: No it isn’t—how many times do I have to tell you that it’s nothing like a divan? Do you know how you can tell that a chaise longue isn’t a divan? Because then it would be a divan!

JULES: Give me strength! Are we going to have the same argument now as when I didn’t know what a commode was? Do you know what a commode is?

JACK: Me? It’s a type of lizard, isn’t it?

JULES: See? I told you.

RO: It’s not a lizard!

JULES: It’s that cabinet in the bathroom, under the washbasin, apparently.

JACK: I had no idea.

JULES: No normal person knows that.

RO: Did you both grow up in caves? Seriously? A commode is a kind of cousin to a vanity. You know what one of those is, presumably?

JACK: Yes, I know what a vanity is.

JULES: How can you know that and yet still call a wardrobe a walk-in closet?

RO: Because a wardrobe is a word used by someone who blogs about juicing and hasn’t pooped a solid turd for three years, whereas a vanity is a proper piece of furniture!

JULES: See what I have to put up with? She was obsessed with vanities and commodes for three months last year because she was going to be a cabinetmaker. Just before she was going to be a yoga instructor, and just after she was going to be a hedge fund manager.

RO: Why do you always have to exaggerate? I was never going to be a hedge fund manager.

JULES: What were you going to be, then?

RO: A day trader.

JULES: What’s the difference?

RO: I didn’t get around to learning that. That was around the time I started to get interested in cheese.

JACK: I’d like us to go back to my question.

RO: You look stressed. It’s not good to bite your tongue like that.

JACK: I’d be less stressed if you just answered the question.

JULES: We sat on the sofa and ate pizza. That’s the answer to your question.

JACK: Thank you! And who was in the apartment at that time?

JULES: The two of us. Estelle. Zara. Lennart. Anna-Lena and Roger. The bank robber.

JACK: And the real estate agent?

JULES: Of course.

JACK: And where was the real estate agent?

JULES: Just then?

JACK: Yes.

JULES: Am I your GPS or something?

JACK: I just want you to verify that everyone else was sitting around the table eating pizza.

JULES: I suppose so.

JACK: You suppose so?

JULES: What’s your problem? I’m pregnant and there were people with guns, I had a lot of things to think about, I’m not some preschool teacher counting knapsacks on a bus.

RO: Is this a candy?

JACK: It’s an eraser.

JULES: Stop eating everything!

RO: I was only asking!

JULES: You know she opens the fridge in every apartment we look at? Do you think that’s acceptable behavior?

JACK: I really don’t care.

RO: They want you to look in the fridge. That’s all part of the real estate agent’s so-called “homestyling, ” everyone knows that. Once I found tacos. They still rank in the top three tacos I’ve ever eaten.

JULES: Hang on, you ate the tacos?

RO: They want you to.

JULES: You ate food you found in some stranger’s fridge? Are you kidding?

RO: What’s wrong with that? It was chicken. Well, I think it was chicken. Everything tastes like chicken when it’s been in the fridge awhile. Apart from turtle. Have I told you about the time I ate turtle?

JULES: What? No! Stop talking now, I’m going to throw up, seriously.

RO: What do you mean, stop talking? You’re the one who keeps saying you want us to know everything about each other!

JULES: Well, I’ve changed my mind. Right now I think we know just the right amount about each other.

RO: Do you think it’s weird to eat tacos at a viewing?

JACK: I’d appreciate it if you didn’t involve me in this.

JULES: He thinks it’s sick.

RO: He didn’t say that! You know what is sick? Jules hides candy and chocolate. What sort of adult does that?

JULES: I hide expensive chocolate, sure, because I’m married to a wormhole.

RO: She’s lying. One time I discovered she’d bought sugar-free chocolate. Sugar-free! And then she hid that as well, as if I wouldn’t even be able to stop myself eating sugar-free chocolate, like some bloody psychopath.

JULES: And then you ate it.

RO: To teach you a lesson. Not because I enjoyed it.

JULES: Okay, I’m ready to answer your questions now!

JACK: Wow. Lucky me.

JULES: Do you want to ask your questions or not?

JACK: Okay. When the perpetrator let you go, and you left the apartment, do you remember who went downstairs with you?

JULES: All the hostages, of course.

JACK: Can you list them, please, in the order you remember them going down the stairs?

JULES: Sure. Me and Ro, Estelle, Lennart, Zara, Anna-Lena, and Roger.

JACK: What about the real estate agent?

JULES: Okay, and the real estate agent.

JACK: The real estate agent must have been with you as well?

JULES: Are we nearly finished here?

RO: I’m hungry.

All professions have their technical aspects that outsiders don’t understand, tools and implements and complicated terminology. Perhaps the police force has more than most, its language is constantly changing, older officers lose track of it at the same rate that younger officers invent it. So Jim didn’t know what the damn thing was called, the telephone thingy. He just knew that there was something special about it that meant you could make calls even though there was hardly any signal, and that Jack was delighted that the station had been given one. Jack was perhaps capable of being more delighted by telephone thingies than Jim thought was strictly reasonable, but it was this phone they had sent in to the bank robber at the end of the hostage drama, so it turned out to be fairly useful after all. It was actually Jim who came up with the idea, which he was not a little proud of. Just after the hostages had been released, the negotiator had called the bank robber on that phone in an attempt to negotiate a peaceful surrender. That was when they heard the shot.

Naturally, Jack has explained the technology in the phone to Jim in great detail, so obviously Jim still calls it “that special telephone thingy which gets a bloody signal where there isn’t a bloody signal. ” When they were about to send it in to the bank robber, obviously Jack told Jim to make sure the ringtone was set properly. Which of course it wasn’t.

Jack is looking around the apartment.

“Dad, did you make sure the ringtone on that phone was switched on when we sent it in? ”

“Yes. Yes. Yes, of course, ” Jim replies.

“So… no, then? ”

“I might have forgotten that. Maybe. ”

Jack rubs his whole face with his palms in frustration.

“Could it have been on vibrate? ”

“It could have been, yes. ”

Jack reaches out and touches the little table where the phone had been lying when they stormed the apartment. It’s barely standing up on three legs, a definite challenge to gravity. He looks at the place on the floor where they found the pistol. Then he follows something invisible with his gaze and goes over to the green curtain. The bullet is in the wall.

“The perpetrator didn’t shoot himself, ” Jack says in a low voice.

Then it dawns on him that the perpetrator wasn’t even in the apartment when the shot was fired.

“I don’t get it, ” Jim says behind him, not angrily like some dads would, but proudly, like only a few dads can. Jim likes hearing his son explain the reasoning behind his conclusions, but there’s no satisfaction in Jack’s voice when he does so now. “The phone was on that wobbly table, Dad. The pistol must have been lying next to it. When we called the phone after all the hostages had been released, it started to vibrate, the table shook, and the pistol fell to the floor and fired. We thought the perpetrator shot himself, but he wasn’t even here. He was already gone. The blood… the stage blood or whatever the hell it is… must have been poured out in advance. ”

Jim looks at his son for a long time. Then scratches his stubble.

“Do you know something? On the one hand this seems like the smartest crime in the world…”

Jack nods, stroking the large lump on his forehead, and finishes his dad’s thought for him: “… but on the other, it seems to have been carried out by a complete idiot. ”

At least one of them is right.

Jack sinks down onto the sofa, and Jim collapses on it as if he’s been pushed. Jack picks up his bag, takes out all the notes from the witness interviews, and spreads them out around him without explaining what he’s doing. He reads through everything one more time. When he puts the last page down, he bites his way methodically along his tongue, because that’s where Jack’s stress lives.

“I’m an idiot, ” he says.

“Why? ” Jim wonders.

“Bloody hell! Bloody, bloody… I’m an idiot! How many people were in the apartment, Dad? ”

“You mean how many prospective buyers? ”

“No, I mean in total, how many people were there in total in the apartment? ”

Jim starts waffling, in the hope that it will make him sound like he understands anything of all this: “Let’s see… seven prospective buyers. Or, well… there were really only those two, Ro and Jules, and Roger and Anna-Lena, and Estelle, who wasn’t really interested in buying the apartment…”

“That’s five, ” Jack nods impatiently.

“Five, yes. That’s it, yes. And then there’s Zara, we don’t really know why she was there. And then there’s Lennart, who was there because Anna-Lena had hired him. So that makes… one, two, three, four, five…”

“Seven people in total! ” Jack nods.

“Plus the perpetrator, ” Jim adds.

“Exactly. But also… plus the real estate agent. ”

“Plus the real estate agent, yes, so that makes nine, then! ” Jim says, immediately cheered by his own mathematical prowess.

“Are you sure, Dad? ” Jack sighs.

He looks at his dad for a long time, waiting for him to realize, but gets no response. Absolutely none at all. Just two eyes staring at him the way they did many years ago after they’d watched a film together, and Jack had to explain at the end: “But, Dad, the bald guy was dead, that’s why only the little kid could see him! ” And his dad exclaimed: “What? Was he a ghost? No, he couldn’t have been, because we could see him! ”

She laughed at that, Jim’s wife and Jack’s mom, God, how she laughed. God, how they miss her. She’s still the one who makes them more understanding toward each other, even though she’s no longer here.

Jim aged badly after she died, became a lesser man, never quite able to breathe back in all the air that had gone out of him. When he sat in the hospital that night, life felt like an icy crevice, and when he lost his grip on the edge and slipped down into the darkness inside him, he whispered angrily to Jack: “I’ve tried talking to God, I really have tried, but what sort of God makes a priest this sick? She’s never done anything but good for other people, so what sort of God gives an illness like this to her?! ”

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