‘Shit. There’s going to be one hell of a war out there.’

‘That’s what they’re all preparing for,’ Maria Klee had come alongside Fabel, a cup of coffee in her hand. She lifted the cup. ‘Want one?’ Fabel shook his head. ‘The whole Präsidium is crawling with LKA7 and BND …’ Maria gave a laugh. ‘If it wears a black leather jacket and it goes by initials, it’s here and it’s got a bee up its ass.’

‘I don’t know why they bother,’ shrugged Werner. ‘Let the bastards kill each other. Save us all a lot of time and hassle.’

‘Unfortunately there’s such a thing as crossfire, Werner –’ Fabel handed the paper back to him – ‘and crossfire and innocent passers-by seem always to come together.’

‘That’s as maybe, but I for one won’t be shedding any tears over this piece of shit.’

Fabel moved towards his office. ‘Do you both have a minute?’

Fabel settled behind his desk and motioned for Maria and Werner to sit down. ‘Do we have anything more on our victim from yesterday?’

‘Nothing,’ Maria answered. ‘I’ve done a full check, both with Hamburg and with the Bundeskriminalamt. She didn’t have any kind of criminal record. And still nothing on the bullet wound. We can’t tie her into any shootings involving women in Hamburg over the last fifteen years.’

‘Then widen the net.’

‘I’m already on it, Chef.’

‘Anna and Paul are managing the surveillance on Klugmann,’ said Werner. ‘So far he went straight home and has stayed in bed. Last report was the curtains were still drawn and there was no sign of life.’

‘Did we get anything more from any of the residents around the flat where the girl was found? Anyone mention seeing an older Slavic-looking guy?’

‘Who are we talking about?’ asked Maria.

‘Jan saw someone hanging around with the ghouls when we arrived at the murder scene,’ answered Werner.

‘A shortish guy, sixty, maybe older … looked foreign?’

Both Werner and Fabel stared at Maria.

‘You saw him?’

‘I arrived on the scene about fifteen minutes before you, remember? A small crowd had already gathered and he would have been a hundred metres from it, coming from the St Pauli direction. I noticed this older guy … The way I would describe him is looking a bit like Khrushchev … you know, the old Soviet president or whatever they called him … in the sixties.’

‘That’s the guy,’ said Fabel.

‘Sorry, I didn’t think much about it at the time. It wasn’t as if he was fleeing the scene or anything, and the crime scene had been populated for at least an hour, so I didn’t even think of a possible perpetrator … You think he’s the killer?’

‘No …’ Fabel frowned. ‘I don’t know … he just seemed to stand out. It’s probably nothing. But he doesn’t belong to the area and you saw him arriving at the locus. I want to find him for elimination.’

‘I’ll ask around some more,’ said Werner.