‘Papa!’ A stocky man, no taller than about one metre seventy-two, with a shock of thick dark hair and a handsome face creased by a broad smile, approached Eitel. He grasped his hand in an enthusiastic handshake, reaching up to place his other hand on the taller man’s shoulder.

‘And this, gnädige Frau, is my son. Norbert Eitel – the next Erste Bürgermeister of Hamburg!’ More camera flashes.

The woman journalist smiled, more in amusement at the unlikely disparity of physical types between father and son than in greeting.

‘Of course, I know Norbert already …’ She smiled and extended a hand to the shorter, younger Eitel. He smiled and kissed her hand.

The older Eitel spoke: ‘If you’ll excuse us, I’m afraid we have matters of great importance to discuss.’ Both men nodded a brief bow. The elder extended his hand.

‘You still haven’t answered my question, Herr Eitel,’ she responded, flatly.

‘Perhaps some other time. It has been a pleasure, gnädige Frau …’

As she walked away, the woman journalist smiled. Gnädige Frau … it was an address she would reserve for some stern, aristocratic grandmother.

As Eitel father and son watched her make her way across the reception towards the door, Wolfgang Eitel’s smile had been washed away by a more predatory expression. He spoke without turning to his son.

‘Who was that, Norbert?’

‘Her? Oh she’s a freelancer – well respected, done work for Der Spiegel and Stern …’

‘Her name …’ It was a command, not a question.

‘Blüm … that’s Angelika Blüm.’

Wednesday 4 June, 6.45 p.m. B73, Hamburg–Cuxhaven.

Fear ran through him like an electric current. A delicious fear that tingled his scalp and tightened his chest. This was his selected duty and he never resented being the one who had to take all the risks.

He took his hands from the steering wheel, first one, then the other, and wiped the sweat from his palms and concentrated on the road. All it would take would be a routine police road check, or a minor accident, or a flat tyre and a helpful autobahn patrol. Then it would be all over. He angled the rear-view mirror so that he could see her. She was slumped in the back seat. Her sonorous breathing was deep but irregular, with a scratchy stridor. Fuck. Maybe he had used too much. ‘Just stay alive,’ he muttered, knowing she was far beyond hearing anything. ‘Just stay alive for a couple of hours more, you stupid bitch.’

Wednesday 4 June, 7.40 p.m. Aussenalster, Hamburg.

The 7.30 Rundfahrt ferry gleamed golden in the evening sun that had at last triumphed against the rain. Fabel stood on deck, leaning with his forearms resting on the rail. The ferry was not particularly busy and the only passengers on deck were an elderly couple, sitting together and in silence on one of the benches. They simply stared out over the Aussenalster, not speaking, not touching, not looking at each other. To Fabel it seemed that all they had left to share was solitude, and he reflected for a moment on how, since his divorce, his solitude had been total. Indivisible and unshared. There had been more than a few women, yet with each new liaison came a deep ache that was something like guilt, and the relationships had never lasted. Fabel had sought something solid in each new involvement, something on which to anchor some sense of meaning, but he had never found it. He had grown up among the tight-knit, Lutheran communities of Ost-Friesland where people married for life. For better and, quite often, for worse. He had never considered that he would be anything other than a full-time, full-term husband and father. It was a constant in his life, an anchor point, like being a policeman. Then Renate, his wife, had removed the landmark of his marriage from his life and Fabel had been lost for a long, long time. And now, five years after his divorce, each time he shared the bed of another woman felt like a small adultery; an infidelity to a marriage that had died long ago.