‘That I will have to kill him to stop him?’

‘Perhaps. He clearly feels that the psychotic part of his personality is safe from you. He perhaps has a fantasy of immortality that you cannot reach, even by killing him. It’s as if there is some kind of buffer between you.’

‘I am a policeman, not an executioner.’ Fabel paused, frowning. ‘But why has he chosen me?’

‘That I don’t know. Again perhaps only “Son of Sven” will ever know the reason he has picked you … but …’

‘But what?’ asked Van Heiden.

Dr Eckhardt continued to address Fabel directly. ‘Well, he feels connected to you. There is a chance that your paths have crossed in the past. Or maybe he is someone you know right now.’

‘But that is by no means definite …’ Fabel made the statement more like a question.

‘No, not definite. It’s just a possibility. This sense of connection may be based simply on what he has read about you, for example … about you or one of your cases and made his choice based on that.’

‘But it could be someone whose path has crossed mine in the past, perhaps significantly?’

‘I think it’s a possibility … but only that.’

Fabel turned to Van Heiden: a look laden with meaning. Van Heiden shook his head. ‘Not that old chestnut, Fabel …’

Fabel shrugged. ‘I know. It’s just I can’t help thinking that it would fit: Svensson taunting me with this “Son of Sven” crap … telling me he’s alive and that this is his work …’

Van Heiden shook his head ‘Give it up, Fabel. Svensson is dead. He’s been dead for nearly twenty years.’

‘Who’s Svensson?’ asked Dr Eckhardt.

‘History,’ answered Van Heiden. ‘Ancient history, and nothing whatsoever to do with this case. Someone long dead.’

‘Presumed long dead,’ corrected Fabel. ‘Supposedly burned to death. But there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the body was his. His name was Karl-Heinz Svensson and he was an evil manipulative bastard who maintained a cell of young female terrorists. He was a former member of the Baader-Meinhof Rote-Armee-Fraktion who set up in business for himself. At that time there were a lot of splinter groups who didn’t share the Baader-Meinhof philosophy of going completely underground. There was the Movement 2nd June and the SPK, which predated the Rote-Armee-Fraktion, and there were the Revolutionäre Zellen, who combined active, deep-cover terrorists with “legals” working in plain sight. Then there was Rote Zora – which was exclusively female. Svensson borrowed from them all. He called his unit RAG – the Radikale Aktionsgruppe. Most of the girls he operated were in their late teens. He sent them out to plant bombs in the arcades by the Alster and to hold up banks.’

‘Fabel and I have been over this before.’ Van Heiden turned back to Dr Eckhardt. ‘Because of the inconclusiveness of the identification of Svensson’s body, Fabel suspects that he may have somehow come back from the grave to carry out these murders.’