‘But it’s end of shift, Chef,’ protested Gebhard.

Kassel replied by staring emptily at Gebhard who shrugged and wheeled the WS25 back out into the Elbe. Kassel had no idea if the young lady from the Mordkommission still had an interest in this vessel, but he thought he had better check it out. He picked up the radio phone and asked to be patched through to Oberkommissarin Klee at the Mordkommission.

Saturday 21 June, 10.00 p.m. The Elbe, near Hamburg.

There was no dominant form to Anna’s consciousness. If confusion can be defined as a form, then that would be closest to the shape her mind took. But even confusion connects with other feelings, other emotions. You get confused and angry, or confused and frightened, or confused and amused. But Anna’s confusion was of itself, totally unanchored. A moment of lucidity would come. Then it would pass. It was like flying through patches of dense cloud; every now and then the plane breaks free and the brightness of the blue sky dazzles for a moment, then is lost.

She was awake. She recognised the interior of MacSwain’s boat. Her hands were tied behind her back and she lay on her side on the bed. She knew now where she was and what had happened. MacSwain had drugged her. He had been in her apartment. He had mixed a cocktail of flunitrazepam or clonazepam and gammahydroxybutyrate into her drinking water. She didn’t have her gun. She didn’t have her cell phone. Fabel had given her time off so no one would miss her. She was on her own and she would have to make her own escape. In the space of a few seconds all of these facts were crystal clear to her. In the next instant they were gone. She had no idea where she was or what was happening to her. Then something like sleep enveloped her.

MacSwain’s voice woke her. He was talking to someone. He was talking fast and breathlessly and without stopping. She could not make out what he was saying, she was so far beneath the surface of her own consciousness, but she pushed upwards, towards the voice.

She broke the surface. Her head resounded with a pain that reverberated against the sides of her skull. MacSwain continued talking. Anna opened her eyes. MacSwain was sitting opposite, his dead and empty eyes fixed unblinkingly on her, his mouth the only animated part of his face. It was as if someone had turned on a tap that could not be turned off until all of the contents of MacSwain’s ugly mind had spilled out.

‘He explained it all to me,’ he continued, his voice urgent and excited. ‘We make our own myths. We fashion our myths from our legends and we create our legends from our history. Odin is a god. He is the god of all Vikings because all Vikings believe he is a god. Before the myth said he was a god, the legends said he was a king. And before the legends made him a king, the history tells us he was probably a village chieftain in Jutland. But what he was isn’t important. It’s what he has become. Say the word Odin and no one thinks of a scruffy village chieftain. Say the name Odin and the world shakes. That is the truth … that is the truth. That is what Colonel Vitrenko explained to me. He showed me that we are all variations on a theme and we are all connected to our history and to our myths.’