He sat down on the grass and watched as an empty sun played with cloud shadows across the flat landscape, across the camp. He could just make out the memorial block before which, he knew, was the sculpture of The Dying Prisoner: an emaciated figure lying buckled and tangle-limbed on the cobbles.

Fabel looked down at a place where women had been murdered in the name of some sick idea of German identity and thought about what Dorn had told him: about how there was an individual with a perverted sense of history and ethnology and faith who was using it as a justification for satisfying his basest instincts and his psychotic hunger for blood.

Fabel needed time to gather his thoughts before phoning the office. He tried to get Mahmoot, but again reached his voice mail. Fabel cursed silently and flipped shut his cell phone. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. He just hoped Mahmoot had had the sense to drop out of it when he heard about the hit on Ulugbay. He sat for a few more minutes, his arms wrapped around his knees and watched sun and shadow dance across the land; then he phoned Werner and outlined Dorn’s theory.

‘I’ll be back in an hour. We’ll have a meeting in the conference room. Better get Paul and Anna back in for it. Have they found anything on Klugmann?’

‘Nope.’

‘I didn’t expect they would. Could you contact Van Heiden and see if he’s free for the conference. He’s going to love this.’

Part Two
Friday 13 June
to Tuesday 17 June

Friday 13 June, 1.50 a.m. St Pauli, Hamburg.

The bass thumped relentlessly. The lights strobed across 400 sweat-sheathed bodies that writhed like a single creature with every pulse of the music’s beat. She clung to him as if they were both adrift in this ocean of humanity. His tongue probed her mouth and his hands explored her body. She took her mouth from his and placed it to his ear, shouting something into it that was all but drowned by the deafening music. He smiled and nodded vigorously, indicating the way out with a couple of jerks of his head. He backed away from her, still holding her hands and still smiling, guiding her through the crowd towards the club’s exit. God, he was good-looking. And sexy. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat and showed the hard lines of his muscles. He was tall and slim; his hair was dark and sleek and his eyes the most incredible colour of green. She wanted him badly.

Hitting the air outside the club was like diving into a plunge pool. The doormen did not even glance in their direction as they spilled out, still entangled. The street was quiet except for the muffled thumping from the club, and for a moment she paused, the cool air and the decrescent effect of the E she had taken making her suddenly more wary. After all, she didn’t even know his name. He sensed the resistance in her body and moved towards her. He beamed a handsome grin at her, revealing perfect teeth that glittered like porcelain in the street lights.