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‘Oh. Don’t know the prize.’

‘Kind of Dutch Nobel Prize, you could say.’

‘Funny friends you’ve got. And the other one, what’s his name…’

‘David. From the travel agency. He doesn’t count for the moment, because I still see him regularly and he calls me twice a week.’

‘But what kind of strange stuff is going on then?’

‘Everything is coming back.’

She looked at me thoughtfully. ‘I don’t find it that strange, I think. These things happen. Chance.’

‘There were two other friends,’ I said. ‘Or rather, a friend and a girlfriend, Peter and Laura.’

Now she raised her eyebrows. ‘And have they turned up, too?’

‘No.’

I waved to the waiter and ordered two more coffees. I hesitated whether to tell her the story, and decided not to. The day was too beautiful.

‘Or are they dead?’ she asked.

I had come across André at the beginning of 2012, in the dossier of a coke case in which ‘senior civil servants and other prominent people’ were possibly involved. I heard myself saying, ‘Hey, André’.

I went to the trial and waited until the accused came in. André had shaved his head. He looked sharp, in a suit that had undoubtedly cost more than my entire wardrobe. His eyes scanned those present. I saw from a barely perceptible nod of his head that he recognized me. I think he knew I would be there before he had seen me.