Fabel knew the history well: Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp, known as Kola-Fu. It was the darkest, most despicable chapter in the history of the Polizei Hamburg. After the Nazis came to power in Hamburg in March 1933, the Polizei Hamburg had been responsible for rounding up Communists and Social Democrat activists. It had been taken over by the SS in September of the same year, but those six months of police control had been enough to tarnish the Polizei Hamburg’s history indelibly.

‘Okay,’ said Fabel at last, ‘I take your point. But I don’t see its relevance.’

Volker’s reply snapped at the tail of Fabel’s statement. ‘The relevance is that you have a whole lot of theories about why I joined the BND. Well let me tell you the truth. I joined because I wanted to defend the only things that stand between Germany and history repeating itself: democracy and the Grundgesetz. You see yourself as a defender of the law. Well I see myself as a defender of the Basic Law … the constitution. I do it because I believe that the only just way to govern is a true liberal democracy.’ He leaned back into his leather chair. ‘Do you know what I really am, Fabel? I’m a fireman.’ He jerked his head towards the window. ‘Out there, Fabel … out there are all kinds of losers and sad wankers who are playing with matches. Extreme right, extreme left, fundamentalist religious nuts … they’re all out there playing with fire in the dark. And my job is to kill the sparks before they become flames.’

‘Okay, I guess I owe you an apology,’ said Fabel. ‘But the fact remains that you withheld evidence from us.’

‘We owe each other nothing, Fabel, other than a little mutual respect and not to make each other’s job more difficult than it is.’ Volker picked up his desk phone, stabbed a button and gave an order that the Vitrenko file was to be brought in.

After the file was handed to Volker he flipped it open and removed a single sheet of paper. He handed the sheet to Fabel. It contained several rows of initials and numbers. He scanned it a couple of times before giving it to Maria.

‘It doesn’t mean anything to me,’ said Fabel. He looked at Maria who shrugged.

‘But it will mean a great deal to your Corporate Crime colleagues.’ Volker tilted his leather chair back and interlocked his fingers before him. ‘These are transaction trackings. They detail movements of funds between accounts – times, dates and amounts.’ He let the chair snap forward again and handed Fabel two more sheets from the file. ‘This is the key to the accounts. It details who holds each account. There is also a federal court warrant –’ Volker smiled, almost maliciously – ‘just to prove we obtained the information legally.’

The list of account holders included Galicia Trading, Klimenko International, Eitel Importing and several others Fabel didn’t recognise.

‘There’s enough there for you to get a seizure warrant. If your fraud people prise open the cracks in some of these phoney accounts they’ll find a trail that leads straight back to the Eitels. And I mean personally. Not to their businesses. There may be some other surprises for you in there as well.’