‘And it was just the women?’ Mahmoot, who had been silently listening to the Ukrainian’s account, asked.

The Ukrainian nodded his head. ‘I remember the head of the recon team said that at least the men had had an easier death. But then we realised that they hadn’t. Vitrenko had forced them to witness. He had made them watch the women die before they were killed.’

Fabel and Mahmoot exchanged a long look. There was silence in the small Portakabin. Again Fabel found himself drawn back to the images Marlies Menzel had displayed in her exhibition and imagined himself in an obscene gallery in a stifling, airless barn in some desolate landscape, staring at the devastated corpses of twenty women: the perverted artworks of a psychopathic creativity.

‘You caught up with him?’

‘Eventually, yes. My orders were to escort him and his men back to Soviet-controlled territory. And that’s what we did. But only after a lot of negotiation. When we caught up with them, Vitrenko’s men actually took up defensive positions. I had to order my men to take cover. They couldn’t understand why their comrades were keeping them in their sights. But these men were no longer Soviet soldiers. They were Vitrenko’s. Bandits. Highly trained, highly motivated and highly efficient … but bandits just the same. And their allegiance was exclusively to Vitrenko.

‘After Afghanistan he was a hero. The details of his atrocities were eclipsed by his popularity among the ordinary men. To be honest, there were few at any level who gave a damn about what happened to a bunch of foreign Muslims, so long as it bore results. Vitrenko soon became acknowledged as an expert on Islamic terrorists. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, he became a valuable member of the new Ukrainian counter-terrorist forces. He joined the Berkut, the “Golden Eagles”. Again, he had an exemplary record. Vitrenko is a highly intelligent and educated individual and he studied all forms of criminology, psychology and counter-terrorism. This, combined with his experience in the field, made him a highly respected expert. But then there was the series of brutal rapes and killings in Kiev.’ The Ukrainian indicated to the photographs again. ‘The first picture you looked at was one of the victims, a young journalist for an independent radio station in Ukraine. We got someone for the killings, a young man in his mid-twenties. He fitted all the criteria of a serial killer and confessed to the killings, but we were pretty certain that he was not acting alone. In fact, Herr Hauptkommissar, I’m not convinced he was the killer at all. There were rumours of some kind of cult behind them and Vitrenko’s name was mentioned. We also had our suspicions that a well-placed police or security officer was masterminding organised criminal activity, but Vitrenko was never directly connected to this. Then, about three years ago, he disappeared. Shortly after, one by one, twelve of his former subordinates dropped out of sight … or actually deserted their posts in the military of Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine.’