‘Because it doesn’t make any sense. Klugmann’s cover has not been blown, except now, by you, and we’re going to have to pull him in. But there’s nothing to link our operation with your other two victims. And without Klugmann’s cover being blown, the Ukrainians have no motive to kill Kramer.’

‘What did Klugmann say when he called in to you that night … just before he reported the murder to us?’

‘He was in a hell of a state. He told us what had happened to Kramer and we recognised it as the same modus as the psycho who killed the first girl. Like I said, we couldn’t see a connection, but I had to make an operational decision in the heat of the moment. I ordered Klugmann to come in, to abort the mission. For all we knew it could have been that his cover was blown. I told Klugmann that once we had him safe we would contact the Polizei Hamburg and report the murder.’

‘So why didn’t that happen?’

‘Klugmann is one of the best officers I’ve ever worked with. He told me to leave him out in the field, to let him handle it, to check out if his cover had been blown and to report the murder to the police.’

Fabel thought back to the Davidwache interview. Klugmann must have enormous internal resources to draw on. He had sat there and taken Werner’s insults, Fabel’s questioning and absorbed the shock of his partner’s horrific murder. He hadn’t let the mask slip once. Fabel had had his suspicions, but not this. Over by the door, Werner gave voice to the same thoughts.

‘Son of a bitch! He has balls, I’ll give you that. Is he safe?’

‘We don’t know. We’ve lost contact. You grabbed his secure cell phone, so we can’t reach him on that. And he hasn’t called in to us. We’re very concerned.’

It was at that point that Maria Klee rapped on the door. Maria’s face had a hard, determined look on it and she gestured for Werner to step out of the office.

Volker turned back to the Kriminalhauptkommissar. ‘You have to believe me, Fabel, if we had thought there was any connection between Kramer’s death and the operation, I would have come straight to you. In any case, we were only holding out until we located Klugmann.’

Fabel was about to say something when Werner came back in, his face like stone.

‘It doesn’t look like you need to worry about Klugmann any more,’ he said. ‘The Harburg Polizeidirektion have just found a body in a disused swimming pool. And the rough description matches your boy.’

Monday 16 June, 11.50 a.m. Hamburg-Harburg, Hamburg.

Fabel, Werner and Maria Klee stood at the chipped edge of a swimming pool that had not seen water in years. Volker had come along, but Fabel had made him wait at the cordon. ‘The fewer people at the crime scene the better … at least until the forensic guys have done their stuff,’ Fabel had explained half-heartedly to Volker. The truth was he was finding it increasingly difficult to stomach Volker’s presence. Volker was part of a half world, the domain of greys and shadows that Yilmaz had described, and Fabel wanted as little as possible to do with him or his world.