Break-In

The call came at ten past midnight, and Jo knew before she’d said a word into the phone that whatever it carried was going to matter, because Anselm never called this late, and had never once, in five months, called without a reason he’d already thought through on the way to dialling.

“Els is at the OLVG.” His voice had none of its usual evenness in it. “Someone broke into her studio. She’s hurt — not badly, they’re telling me, but she’s hurt, and Sanne’s already there because Sanne’s on nights this week, and I’m getting a taxi and I need you to meet me there.”

“I’m coming now.”

The taxi ride felt longer than it measured, the city sliding past in the flat orange wash of streetlight that made every canal look identical to every other one, and Jo spent the whole of it doing the only thing she…