‘Yes …’ The thumbnail dug deeper. One leg, resting on the ball of the foot, started to bounce in an unconscious twitch under the table. The action made the hands shake rhythmically.

‘It must have been a shock … very unpleasant for you …’

There was genuine pain in Klugmann’s eyes. ‘You could say that …’

‘Monique was a friend?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yet you claim you don’t know her surname?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Look, Herr Klugmann, I have to admit I really need your help here. I’m a very confused man and I’m relying on you to help me clear up my confusion. So far I have the body of an anonymous girl lying dismembered in an apartment where there’s no trace of personal belongings other than a single set of clothes found in a wardrobe … no purse, no papers … for that matter there isn’t even any food other than a litre of milk in the fridge. We also find some of the trappings you would expect in an apartment used for prostitution. And the apartment is located conveniently near, but not in, the red-light district. Yet there is no evidence of a lot of male visitors. See why I am confused?’

Klugmann shrugged.

‘And on top of all that we discover that the apartment is officially rented out to a former police special-forces officer who claims not to know his sub-tenant’s full name.’ Fabel waited for the words to sink in. Klugmann sat impassive, staring at his hands. ‘So why don’t you stop jerking us around, Herr Klugmann? You and I both know that the apartment was used for the purposes of prostitution, but in some kind of highly selective way, and that this girl Monique didn’t live there. Listen, I’m not interested in your arrangement with this girl other than in the information you can give me about her. Do I make myself clear?’

Klugmann nodded but did not lift his gaze from his hands.

‘So what was her name?’

‘I told you, I don’t know … I swear that’s the truth. All I ever called her – all she ever called herself – was Monique.’

‘But she was a prostitute?’

‘Okay, maybe … I don’t know … she might have been … maybe part time. Nothing to do with me. She never seemed short of money, so yeah, maybe.’

‘How long have you known her?’

‘Only about three or four months.’

‘If you don’t know her name,’ Werner said, ‘then there must be others who do. Who did she hang out with?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You never met any of her friends?’ Fabel asked without disguising his incredulity.

‘No.’

Fabel pushed a photograph of the first victim, Ursula Kastner, across the desk. ‘Recognise her?’

‘No. Well … yeah … but only from the papers. Isn’t she the lawyer that got murdered? Was she done the same way?’

Fabel ignored the question and left the photograph sitting there. Klugmann didn’t look at it again. Fabel had a feeling that he was deliberately avoiding looking at Kastner’s face. An instinct, somewhere deep inside Fabel’s gut, began to stir.