As far as Schwartz was concerned, adults could behave exactly as they wished, so long as everything happened consensually. All that angered him about this was that the insane behaviour of a minority was unnecessarily aggravating the dumb prejudices against AIDS sufferers. For of course bug parties were the absolute exception, whereas the overwhelming majority of infected individuals lived a responsible life, many of them involved in an active battle against the disease and the stigmatisation of its victims.

A battle to foil the suicidal bug parties.

Not to mention the psychopathic variants.

The newest trend in the perverted scene were ‘events’ at which innocents were raped and infected with the virus. Mostly under-aged victims. In front of a paying public. A new attraction at the Berlin funfair of filth which kept its tents open around the clock. Often in elegant houses in middle-class areas where you’d never suspect anything like that might occur.

Detlev Pryga, a man who in normal life sold plumbing equipment, was popular with the youth welfare office, as he regularly took in the most difficult foster children. Drug addicts, victims of abuse and other problem cases, who’d spent more time inside children’s homes than classrooms. Troubled souls who were perfectly used to exchanging sex in return for somewhere to spend the night. Nobody noticed if they soon vanished again, to be picked up again some time later, dishevelled and ill. The perfect victims, troublemakers who shunned the law and who were rarely believed if they ever sought help.

Liam, the twelve-year-old boy from the streets, who’d been living in Pryga’s house for a month, would also be thrown back into the gutter very soon after this evening. Before that, however, he was going to be forced to have sex with Kurt Jensen, a forty-three-year-old HIV-infected paedophile, in front of an audience of guests.

Pryga had met Jensen via relevant chatrooms on the internet, thereby falling into the police’s net.

The child abuser had now been in custody for two weeks, during which Schwartz had been making preparations to assume Jensen’s identity. This was a relatively simple matter, as there hadn’t been any exchange of photos between him and Pryga. He just had to wear the leather outfit that Pryga had requested for the filming and shave his head, because Jensen had described himself as tall and slim, with green eyes and a bald head. Features which, thanks to the shave and contact lenses, now applied to Martin Schwartz too.

The most difficult aspect of his disguise was the positive AIDS test that Pryga demanded. Not in advance, but at the party itself. He’d explained that he’d be equipped with a rapid test from an online Dutch pharmacy. All it needed was a drop of blood and the result would be visible on the test strip within three minutes.