‘Well, Frau Blüm, I’d better find out just what the hell it was that you wanted to tell me.’

Sunday 15 June, 9.45 a.m. Harburg, Hamburg.

Hansi Kraus was more whippet than man: a small, jangling conjunction of bones held together by grey, leathery skin. His eyes, set deep in a pinched, rodential face, had been pale blue in childhood but had since been dulled to a lifeless bluish grey by fifteen years of absorbing prodigious amounts of heroin. Hansi lay on a stained mattress that fumed a stale, unclean odour into the bedroom of the squat; a smell that went unnoticed by Hansi, mainly because he carried it around with him all of the time. He lay with one arm hooked, the hand supporting his head, while the other hand held the cigarette to his thin lips.

Hansi needed to get happy. And soon. He knew that the bud of an ache he felt in his meagre frame would soon bloom into a body-wracking gnaw. To get happy meant money, and Hansi didn’t have any. And, despite the volume and regularity of his custom, his suppliers were unlikely to extend Hansi any form of credit. Fucking Turks. But Hansi’s bargaining position had been given an unexpected boost. He swung his legs around and sat up on the edge of the bed. Screwing his eyes tight against the smoke from his cigarette, he reached under the bed with both hands. It was still there. He held this pose for a few seconds, listening, screw-eyed, to the sounds from elsewhere in the squat: a tubercular-sounding cough downstairs, a radio in the next bedroom. Hansi pulled out a small bundle wrapped in a couple of soiled rags and laid it on the mattress. Carefully folding back the cloth, he revealed a glittering nine-millimetre automatic pistol. Hansi didn’t know anything about guns but he could tell this one was special. It looked expensive. Its flank was ornately tooled with decorative motifs that looked as if they had been inlaid with gold. The maker’s mark was foreign; in Cyrillic capitals – Russian or some shit like that, thought Hansi – followed by the number twelve in numerals. Hansi folded the cloth back over, taking care not to touch the gun itself: there was no way he wanted to be tied into what had happened to that poor fuck in the swimming pool.

It had been the night before last. Hansi had been buying some stuff from the Turk. The disused swimming pool was a regular venue for Hansi’s deals. Whenever he had enough cash he would buy a surplus of heroin and sell some of it on. The Turks didn’t mind so long as he didn’t trade widely or stray onto their patch. Hansi hadn’t had cash to spare on Friday and could only just afford to buy enough to keep himself going. The Turk had just left to resume his rounds when Hansi had felt the urgent need to defecate. He was used to the alternating bouts of gut-stabbing constipation and diarrhoea that went with a long-standing addiction. He had just finished emptying his bowels onto the floor when he heard the car pull up. There had been no warning sweep of headlights; the car had obviously driven up with its lights off. Years of street living had given Hansi a sixth sense about when to make himself invisible, and, hastily pulling his jeans up, he had dodged behind the door that at one time had led bathers to the changing area.