Fabel leaned over her and placed a hand gently on either side of her face, bringing his face kissing-close to hers.

‘I don’t want to die, Jan …’ she said in a little girl’s voice. ‘Please don’t let me die.’

‘You’re not going to die, Maria,’ Fabel’s voice held gentleness and determination in equal measure. ‘Look at me. Listen to me. Think this through. Vitrenko could have killed you if he had wanted to. But he didn’t. He didn’t because he wanted me here, tending to you, instead of coming after him. You’re not one of his victims, Maria. You’re a diversion. A delaying tactic.’ He could feel her small breaths on his face. ‘You’re not going to die.’ But he was not at all sure he was telling the truth. Maria smiled and a small rivulet of dark blood escaped from the corner of her lips.

A voice from beyond the universe that was Fabel and Maria and the small circle of dark grass. A radio voice. Werner.

‘Anna’s okay, Chef. Repeat … Anna is okay … Have you got Vitrenko? Over.’

Fabel hit the transmission button. He heard his own voice, dead and flat, reporting the murder of the Cuxhaven policeman and that he had a seriously wounded officer in need of immediate airlift by Medicopter.

‘Help will be here soon, Maria. You’re going to be fine. I promise. We’ve got MacSwain.’

Maria smiled weakly. Her breath was becoming more laboured.

Fabel raised his eyes. He thought he could see a tall figure at the extreme far corner of the field. Vitrenko, heading into the woods. As he ran, Vitrenko’s raincoat flapped behind him, like dark wings. Fabel leapt to his feet, drew his pistol and fired, knowing that Vitrenko was out of range. Out of reach. As the magazine emptied, and Fabel heard the repeated, impotent clicking of the firing pin on an empty chamber, he again recalled the words from the e-mail. The words that MacSwain had written, but that Vitrenko had dictated.

You can stop me, but you will never catch me.

THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have a lot to be grateful for. And there’s a lot of people to whom I am grateful: Wendy, my wife, for all her comments and edits on the first draft and for her unwavering support and belief in Jan Fabel; my children, Jonathan and Sophie, for their patience while I devoted so much time to this book; and my mother, an avid and expert crime thriller reader, who provided comments on the manuscript.

I wholeheartedly thank my agent, Carole Blake, for her enthusiasm, energy, commitment and hard work, as well as Oli Munson and David Eddy of Blake Friedmann Literary Agency. I would also thank Paul Sidey, my editor and a true literary gent, whose suggestions have made this a better book; Tiffany Stansfield, his assistant editor; and Neville Gomes, my copy-editor, for his painstaking attention to detail. I would like to thank Mark McCallum and Ron Beard, as well as everyone else in Random House marketing and sales departments, for their enthusiastic support.