“Let’s pinch a few hausfraus,” he said. “The little ones are in the school now, and the hubbie’s gone to work. This is the hour the entertaining starts.”

The raised eyebrow and the refusal to smile left Felix baffled.

“Entertainment?”

“And they’ll be speeding, let me tell you.”

Gebi Josef, or Seppi Gebhart wasn’t a cynic, Felix had come to conclude. He had wondered at first how a 41-year-old Gendarme had not moved up in all those years of service. He rarely mentioned his family, and it seemed that he kept work and home very distinct.

Felix had found out from Korschak who had muttered something about having smart daughters who gave him grief, a son who had some issues. “Issues?”

Out on the road now, he took up position beside Gebi, who had the pistole mounted and scanning quickly. He watched Gebi’s impassive face as the cars came by. None tripped the pistole limit.

There weren’t even any dives, those half-funny giveaways that showed the driver had been speeding. They must have been spotted.

“Don’t give up yet,” said Gebhart. “A few more minutes. You’ll see.”

Felix looked across the wet fields, his mind drifting. It was seldom lately that he’d found himself wondering whether some cynic, or maybe some old enemy of his father, had put him here in Stephansdorf, with Gebhart, as a joke. Maybe it was a test: prove you can work with anyone, Kimmel: we’ve been saving this one for you. Survive this, and you’ll do fine. Or had it been a kindly gesture in disguise, from someone in Postings who had read something into Felix’s CV, and his temperament, and engineered his posting here as a warning: this is what a stale cop looks like. Do you want to grow to be like this cop?

Then he heard the alarm go from the laserpistole.