If it hadn’t been for his almost obsessive tidiness he wouldn’t have noticed it. He rose from the couch to put the two reference books back on their shelf. Just before he put the one from Otto’s store back, he flicked through it absent-mindedly, letting the pages flutter through his fingers. There it was. A full-page colour plate of a wood-carved representation of Odin. The dark wood was crudely but strikingly fashioned into the bearded face and screaming, bared-teeth snarl of a berserker. It was the face of all-wise Odin. And the price Odin had had to pay to drink from the well of wisdom was to lose an eye.

That’s why they all had the same face when they raped you, Michaela, thought Fabel. They all wore a mask. The same mask. The mask of one-eyed Odin.

Saturday 14 June, 8.00 p.m. Pöseldorf, Hamburg.

Fabel didn’t need to look around to know that she had entered the bar. The barman facing him gazed blankly over Fabel’s shoulder and the motion of his hands stopped in the middle of polishing a glass. Fabel also heard the conversation of the two men to his right trail into silence as they moved aside to make way for her. He felt her presence as she leaned on the bar next to him, and the subtle sensuality of her perfume reached him. Fabel smiled and without turning his head said: ‘Good evening, Frau Doktor Eckhardt.’

‘Good evening, Herr Kriminalhauptkommissar.’

Fabel turned. Susanne was dressed in a simple sleeveless black dress and her raven hair was loosely tied up. Fabel somehow remembered to take a breath.

‘I’m glad you could make it,’ he said.

‘So am I.’

Fabel ordered drinks and they made their way over to a table by the window. Milchstrasse was full of people strolling or sitting out in the pavement cafés and enjoying the embers of the day.

‘I’m determined that we won’t talk shop this evening,’ said Fabel, ‘but would you be free for a case conference on Monday morning at ten?’

‘No problem,’ Susanne said. ‘This case has really got to you, hasn’t it?’

Fabel smiled weakly. ‘They all do. But yes, this one in particular. There are so many things that don’t fit and so many things that fit too well.’ Fabel outlined his theory about the Odin masks.

‘I just don’t know, Jan,’ Susanne said, rotating her wine glass by turning the stem between her fingers, ‘I still think that this is a single killer. And I still think that you’re off-base with your theory about ulterior motives. I think that this is a solo sicko getting off by butchering young women at random.’

‘That sounded a less than professional summary, Frau Doktor.’

Susanne laughed. ‘Sometimes I feel less than professional. I am still a human being, an ordinary person, and occasionally I can’t help reacting to all this horror at an emotional level. There must be times you feel the same?’

Fabel laughed. ‘Most of the time, in fact. But if you feel like that why do you do it?’