‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Anna said, keeping focused on the silver Porsche, two cars ahead.

‘While I was parked down the road, two skinheads came running past as if they’d seen the Devil. That wouldn’t be you, would it?’

‘I have absolutely no idea what you mean.’

They pulled up behind a queue at a set of traffic lights. Paul craned his long neck to check if the Porsche had already gone through. It hadn’t. He turned to look at Anna and saw, through the passenger side window, a thickset skinhead, bent over, hands on knees, trying to catch his breath. His face was smeared with blood. He was looking back down the road as if to check he was not being pursued. His eyes came round and met Paul’s. Then he saw Anna. She blew him a long, sensual kiss with her full, fire-truck-red lips, punctuating it with a smacking sound. The skinhead froze with terror, then looked around for an escape route. The lights changed and the Mercedes started to move. Anna crinkled her nose at him and waggled her fingers in a cute ‘bye-bye’.

‘Absolutely no idea at all,’ said Anna, her face an expression of exaggerated innocence. Paul checked his rear-view mirror. The skinhead was standing in sag-shouldered relief, gazing blankly after the car.

‘Anna, just be careful. One of these days you’re going to end up biting off more than you can chew.’

‘I can handle myself.’

‘And one of these days you’re going to end up with a harassment or brutality claim against you.’

Anna barked a laugh. She gestured with her hand for Paul to take the next left: the Porsche’s indicator was blinking. ‘No self-respecting neo-Nazi skinhead fuckwit is going to admit to having his ass kicked by a one-metre-fifty-eight Jüdin. And if they did, it would be laughed out of court.’

Paul shook his head. Anna, he knew, came from a survivor family: Hamburg Jews who had been hidden by a sympathetic family until the British and the Canadians took Hamburg. She had grown up spiked with defences; defences that had been honed by martial-arts training and three years’ service in the Israeli army.

The sky had turned a velvet blue. Paul focused on the silver Porsche; MacSwain led them out onto Hallerstrasse. The municipal high-rise flats of the Grindelhochhäuser loomed into the darkness. They could have been in an estate in London, Birmingham or Glasgow. The flats had, in fact, been built after the war to hold the families of the soldiers of the British occupying forces. When the British moved out, they handed the flats over to the Hamburg authorities. Now the Grindelhochhäuser, shunned by the population of Hamburg, were occupied mainly by immigrant families. Ukrainian gangs were rumoured to hold sway in this imported concrete jungle.

MacSwain crossed into Beim Schlump and passed Sternschanzen-Park. He turned into Schanzenstrasse.

‘He’s heading towards St Pauli,’ said Anna.

‘Where the second victim was found.’ Paul gave Anna a quick look. ‘But he’s probably just off for a night out …’