‘And our killer is emulating these?’ Fabel’s voice was still full of disbelief.

‘Oh yes. I read some of the details in the paper. I could see that you tried to keep as many secret as possible, but from what was said about the dismemberment, I guessed the rest.’

‘I can’t believe it. It’s obscene.’

‘To us, yes,’ said Dorn. ‘But to the killer it’s noble. A crusade. He believes he is serving the ancient gods. He has the highest moral authority on his side. He is a proselytiser, a missionary returning Germany to its true faith.’ Dorn put the book down. ‘You are dealing with the darkest forces imaginable, Jan. This killer is a true believer. And what he believes in is truly apocalyptic, in a way the Christian mind cannot comprehend. The Vikings had their Judgement Day too. Ragnarok. But biblical apocalypses pale into nothing compared to Ragnarok. A time when Odin and the Aesir join battle against Loki and the Vanir. A time of fire and blood and ice when earth and heaven and all living things are consumed. This “Blood Eagle” believes in all of that. His mission is to see the heavens fall and the oceans to fill with blood.’

Fabel sat, holding the newspaper limply in his hands and gazed, unseeing, at the headline. His mind raced.

‘How can you be so sure about him? We’ve got a criminal psychologist who profiles …’

‘I’m no psychologist, you’re right,’ Dorn’s voice revealed something close to anger. ‘But I have spent much of the last twenty years trying to understand minds like this maniac’s. Trying to make sense of what drives a human being to become a hunter, torturer and killer of other human beings …’ Dorn broke off. There was genuine pain in his eyes.

Fabel sat motionless, still stunned. When he did eventually speak, it was as much to himself as to Dorn. ‘I just can’t believe it. He is out there living out some obscene fantasy, believing he has a mission to fulfil. If what you say is true, that is.’

‘What I am telling you is part of the historical record. Whether it really happened as recorded or not, or whether it was exaggerated to demonise the Vikings by those who documented it, doesn’t matter. It’s there. And your killer believes it.’

‘And if it is a mission,’ continued Fabel, ‘then he is going to go on and on killing. Until we stop him.’

For some reason Fabel did not want to make the call from the visitors’ car park outside Vierlande Prison. Instead he drove out to the Neuengammer Hausdeich dyke. He stopped the car and climbed the steep bank of the dyke. From here he could see the Neuengamme Concentration Camp with its symmetrically laid-out buildings and blocks. Most of the prisoners here had been women. The prisoners of Neuengamme and its satellite camps had been used as slave labour to build temporary housing for the people of Hamburg who had been bombed out of their homes. When he had been brought here by his father, the ten-year-old Fabel had learned a new phrase, Vernichtung durch Arbeit: extermination through labour. The prisoners had been worked to death.