Werner, Maria, Anna and Paul nodded bleakly. Susanne also sat at the table and there had been an exchange of knowing looks between the others when she arrived with Fabel.

‘So what does this e-mail tell us?’ Fabel’s gesture invited a response from everyone.

It was Maria who spoke first. ‘Well, it rather unpleasantly confirms he is masquerading as a policeman. In this case, specifically you.’

‘I’m not a uniformed officer. So he can’t be dressed up in a Schutzpolizei uniform.’

‘It looks like he’s got his hands on a KriPo shield or ID warrant … or both,’ suggested Werner.

‘What about his victim?’ said Fabel. Mentioning her reminded him of what he had said in the e-mail: that she died thinking that he, Fabel, had killed her. The thought stabbed nauseatingly in his chest. ‘He described her as “a woman of many words” …’

‘A politician?’ ventured Maria. ‘An actress … or a writer or journalist?’

‘Possible,’ said Susanne, ‘but remember he is a psychopath with a distorted view of the world. She might simply be someone he thinks talks too much.’

‘But what about her defaming soldiers, as he put it? Sounds like she’s someone with a public audience,’ said Paul Lindemann.

‘What about the e-mail itself?’ asked Fabel. ‘I take it we’ve got a fake IP address?’

‘Technical Section are pursuing it,’ Maria said. ‘I got the section head out of bed to check it out. He is not a happy camper.’

Werner stood up suddenly, his face clouded with anger and frustration. He walked over to the obsidian sheet of window that reflected the room in on itself. ‘All we can do is wait until her body is discovered. He’s leaving us nothing to go on.’

‘You’re right, Werner,’ said Fabel. He looked at his watch. ‘I think we should all try to catch up on some sleep. Let’s reconvene here at, say, ten a.m.’

They were all rising wearily from the table when the conference-room phone rang. Anna Wolff was nearest so she lifted the receiver. The weariness was suddenly swept from her face. She held up her free hand to stop the others leaving the room.

‘That was Technical Section,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a genuine IP address from the provider. It belongs to an Angelika Blüm. And we’ve got an address in Uhlenhorst.’

‘Oh my God,’ Fabel said. ‘She’s the journalist who’s been trying to reach me.’

‘A journalist?’ asked Maria.

‘Yes,’ said Fabel, ‘a woman of many words.’

Sunday 15 June, 2.15 a.m. Uhlenhorst, Hamburg.

The apartment building met all of the criteria of Hamburg chic. It had been built in the 1920s and it looked as if it had been comprehensively refurbished reasonably recently. Fabel, who knew a thing or two about Modernist architecture, reckoned it had been designed by Karl Schneider, or at least one of his school. There were no hard edges to it: the whitewashed walls met in elegant curves, rather than corners, and the windows of the serviced apartments were high and wide. Uhlenhorst had never quite achieved the same prestige of Rotherbaum, but it was still an affluent and trendy neighbourhood.