‘What’s your point, Maria?’

‘There’s everything here you would expect from a call girl’s apartment … but it’s like a set designer’s idea of what a call girl’s apartment should look like. And it’s like no one has really lived here.’

‘For all we know this place wasn’t lived in. It could simply be “business” premises used by a team of girls …’

‘I know … but there’s still something about it that doesn’t ring true. Know what I mean?’

Fabel took a deep breath and held it for a moment before replying. ‘As a matter of fact I know exactly what you mean, Maria.’

Fabel moved back into the main room. The scene-of-crime photographer was taking detailed shots of the body. He had set up a lamp on a stand; the stark light was focused on the corpse, making the blood spattered across the room even more vivid and adding to the sense of explosive violence. The young uniformed officer was still standing at the door, his gaze fixed on the corpse. Fabel placed himself between the young cop and the body.

‘What’s your name, son?’

‘Beller, sir. Uwe Beller.’

‘Okay, Beller. Did you speak to any of the neighbours?’

Beller’s gaze had started to drift across Fabel’s shoulder and back to the horror in the room beyond. He snapped himself back. ‘What? Oh … yes. Sorry sir, yes, I did. There’s a couple on the ground floor and an old lady immediately underneath. They didn’t hear a thing. But there again, the Oma underneath is practically deaf.’

‘Can they give us a name for the girl?’

‘No. Both the old lady and the couple say they hardly ever saw her. The flat used to be owned by another old woman who died about a year ago. It was empty for about three months and then it was rented out again.’

‘Did they see anyone come or go this evening?’

‘No. Other than the guy who arrived at two-thirty, the guy who phoned us. The couple on the ground floor were woken up by the front door slamming – it’s on a spring hinge and it closes with a bang that echoes a bit in the hall … but nobody heard anything before that. There again the couple on the ground floor were asleep and, like I say, the old lady underneath is a bit deaf.’ Beller tilted his head to look over Fabel’s shoulder towards the body. ‘Whoever it was is a complete psycho. Mind you, she was asking for trouble getting mixed up in this game – bringing back all kinds of pervert off the street.’

Fabel picked up the dog-eared photograph that leaned against the lamp on the dresser. A worn fragment of someone’s life, a real life. It was as much at home in this spiritless apartment as grit in an eye. The photograph had been taken in what Fabel guessed to be Hamburg’s Planten un Blomen park on a sunny day. It was an old photograph, the quality was not good and it had been taken from a distance, but he could just make out the features of a mousy-haired adolescent girl, around fourteen. It was a face that was not ugly, not pretty, but one you would pass in the street without noticing. With her was an older boy, about nineteen, and a couple in their mid-forties. There was that feel of familiarity and ease between them that led instantly to the conclusion that this was a family.