‘Sonja, where’s Hans?’

Sonja shrugged and tears welled up in her nut-brown eyes. ‘I don’t know. He was here when I left this morning. He didn’t say he was going anywhere. He hasn’t been out since that girl got killed. He’s very upset about it.’ The eyes went hard behind the tears. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

‘We’re not accusing him of anything. We just need to ask him some questions.’

The nut-brown eyes still glittered with a mixture of fear and anger.

‘Sonja, could you excuse us for a moment.’ Fabel turned to his officers. ‘Anna, Paul … a word. Outside.’

Once they were out on the landing, Anna Wolff’s and Paul Lindemann’s expressions showed they knew what this was about. Anna Wolff decided to pre-empt Fabel and held up her hands.

‘I’m sorry, Chef … there’s no way he could have got past us. We were on him tight.’

‘Not tight enough apparently.’ Fabel was struggling to keep a lid on his frustration. ‘Klugmann is the only lead we’ve got, and you’ve let him get away.’ He jabbed a finger at them. ‘You lost him. You find him.’

‘Yes Chef,’ they said in unison.

‘And start by seeing if any of the neighbours are in.’

Fabel went back into the living room. He sat down next to Sonja on the couch, leaning his elbows on his knees.

‘Are you feeling better now?’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Who did you think we were?’

Sonja turned to Fabel and blinked. ‘What? What do you mean?’ In that instant he knew she was hiding something.

‘I know it’s very alarming to have armed police barge into your home, but you thought we were someone else, didn’t you?’

Sonja gazed down at her knees.

‘Look, Sonja, is Hans in trouble? If he’s in danger, we can help him. Help us find him. As far as we know he hasn’t done anything wrong other than keep information from us. But we need to talk to him.’

She broke down. Great racking sobs. Fabel put his arm around her shoulders.

‘I don’t know where he is …’ She pointed to a cell phone on the coffee table. ‘That’s his phone … he never goes anywhere without that.’

She turned to Fabel, her eyes large and round. Fabel remembered what Mahmoot had said about her: nice kid. He picked up the phone and pressed the last-number redial. It was the same number Klugmann had called after he had discovered Monique’s body. He turned the display to Werner who read it and gave Fabel a meaningful look. Fabel slipped the cell phone into his jacket pocket and turned back to Sonja.

‘Sonja, who did you think we were?’

‘Hans has been doing some business. Foreigners. Russians or Ukrainians, I think. He tried to keep me out of it, but I know these people are dangerous. I think things maybe didn’t go so good with them. For the last couple of days he told me not to answer the door, he would go if anyone came.’ She let out a sob. ‘I thought that’s maybe who you were …’