He stepped out through the front door with Fabel, turned and looked up at his house.

‘Do you like my home, Herr Fabel?’

‘Yes. It’s very impressive.’

‘It was built in the 1920s. The architect who designed it was responsible for a number of properties in Rotherbaum. A German architect with a reputation above all others and one of the most successful architectural practices in Germany. A rich, respected and successful man in his own right.’ Yilmaz turned to Fabel. ‘He was also a Jew. He died in Dachau Concentration Camp. As I say, Herr Fabel, I distinguish between what is legal and what is moral, and there is a limit to how firmly I grasp the concept of Germanness. While I have hopes for my son, I know that I will always be an outsider. And that is why there remains an “alternative” element to my business activities. Goodbye, Herr Fabel. And good luck in your hunt.’

Fabel called the Mordkommission from his car. He had put Maria on tracing John MacSwain – a name as distinctive as that wouldn’t be hard to find in Hamburg and Maria would be quicker than waiting for Otto to search through his accounts. Fabel got through to Werner who told him they had an address for John MacSwain in Harvestehude, but there was no other information on him yet.

‘I’ve got another strange one for you, Chef,’ said Werner. ‘I’ve had a call from a Hauptkommissar Sülberg in Cuxhaven. He’d like you to call him urgently. He has a couple of cases of ritualised multiple rape. He thought they may be connected to our serial. Oh, and that journalist, Angelika Blüm, has been trying to get you again.’

‘Okay, I’ll be right back.’ Fabel snapped shut his cell phone and slipped it into his pocket. As he started the car, he caught sight of a pretty girl in his side mirror. She was getting into a car further down the street. She had thick, short hair of iridescent blonde and exuded a lithe youthfulness. He couldn’t quite place where he had seen her before.

The voice on the other end of the phone was warm and rich, with a hint behind the standard German of the same Plattdeutsch tones Fabel had grown up with. They had not got far into the conversation when Fabel realised that there was an acute intellect behind the cosy provincial tones.

‘And you think there might be a link between these attacks and the murders I’m investigating. What do you base that on, Hauptkommissar Sülberg?’ Fabel asked.

‘I could be vague and say it’s a hunch. But it’s an educated hunch. I’ve got two young women in the Stadtkrankenhaus here, one being treated, the other in the morgue.’

‘Murdered?’

‘No … or at least not directly. But I’m treating it as culpable homicide. Both the dead girl and the one we have in hospital had a hypno-hallucinogenic unknowingly administered.’

‘Date-rape drugs?’

‘That’s what the tests say. Both girls were bound by the wrists and ankles and abused in some kind of ritual. I read the details of your two murders in the Bundeskriminalamt’s briefing and saw parallels. This second victim was staying with her cousin in Hamburg last night. She met a guy in a St Pauli nightclub and she thinks he doped her with a spiked mineral-water bottle. So that places the primary scene of commission in your jurisdiction.’