Fabel smiled. This hick cop knew his business. ‘What makes you think there’s a ritualistic element to all of this?’

‘As you know, these drugs cause serious amnesia, but between the gaps the victim has vague recollections of being tied to some kind of altar. She says she thinks there was a statue of some kind as well.’

‘Thanks for the call, Herr Sülberg. I think that it’s certainly worth having a look at. I have a forensic psychiatrist working with me on this case, a Dr Eckhardt. Would you mind if I brought her along?’

Sülberg indicated that he had no objections and they arranged a time for the next day.

Friday 13 June, 7.30 p.m. Harvestehude, Hamburg.

For Fabel, there were critical moments during the interrogation of suspects or questioning of witnesses: split-seconds where people’s reactions were raw and natural; when even the most rehearsed cover story did not have time to kick in. One such time being when the police turn up at the door unannounced. Official contact with the police is the exception in the lives of the average citizen, and when a police officer turns up at the door, the average citizen responds in a set number of ways. Alarm is the most common: the police visit seen as the delivery of bad news, usually the death of a relative. At the very least, a police officer on the doorstep is seen as the sign of something wrong, a crime or an accident, and the reaction tends to be a wide-eyed combination of disquiet and querulousness.

John MacSwain had got it all wrong. When Fabel and Werner had held out their oval shields, MacSwain had smiled his most casual smile, stood to one side and invited them in.

For the second time in a day Fabel found himself in a home that was way out of his price bracket. MacSwain’s apartment was vast and very expensively decorated and furnished. The taste was flawless. MacSwain himself was a tall, dark-haired and casually but expensively dressed man in his late twenties. He had the muscular, masculine good looks of a film actor. Fabel noticed his most striking feature was his eyes, that were a light emerald and not unlike those of the Slav he had seen that night outside the murder scene. The architecture of the face, however, was totally different.

MacSwain led them into a huge open-plan living area that was floored in highly polished beech. A few steps took them down into a sunken seating area where MacSwain dropped back elegantly onto one of the two huge hide couches. He indicated the other couch with a wave of his hand.

‘What can I do for you gentlemen?’ MacSwain’s German was perfect and almost totally unaccented.

Fabel smiled and spoke in English. ‘I take it you are not German. You’re English? Or maybe American?’

MacSwain looked surprised. ‘Actually I’m Scottish … your English is exceptional, Herr …’

‘Fabel. Kriminalhauptkommissar Fabel. Actually I am half Scottish myself. I was partly educated in England.’