A car passing along the street outside the hotel sounded its horn and temporarily brought her back to the present and Cologne. Maria thought of Frank and wept. Not just for him, but for herself. He had been her last chance for salvation.

Maria felt empty and aching and old. But there was something else. The idea. The idea had been there, fully formed in her mind as soon as she woke up. And with it came a strength and sense of purpose she thought she had lost for ever.

Maria showered, changed and tore the page she needed from the telephone directory. She was about to go straight out, again skipping breakfast, but she checked herself. She went into the dining room and forced herself to eat some muesli and fruit. The breakfast and the coffee she drunk seemed to fuel her instantly. And this time there would be no trip to the toilets to void her gut. She headed purposefully out of the hotel. There had been a light fall of snow during the night that had turned into a mucky grey slush. She left the car and walked into the city centre. She found the hairdresser’s first. Maria’s hair was never particularly long and she usually spent a small fortune on expensive Hamburg stylists. This salon was the standard sort of place with a limited range of styles and an even more limited range of skills. A girl who looked as if she should have still been at school shampooed Maria’s hair and asked her what she wanted done. Maria took a photograph from her handbag.

‘That,’ she said. ‘I want to look like that.’

‘You sure?’ asked the hairdresser. ‘Your hair has a lovely natural colour. Most of my customers would kill for hair your shade of blonde. They keep asking me but I never manage it, of course.’

‘Can you manage that?’ asked Maria.

The hairdresser shrugged and handed back the photograph of Maria and her friend and colleague Anna Wolff. ‘Easy. If you’re sure that’s what you want …’

An hour and a half later, Maria was out on the street again. Despite the cold she didn’t put her hat back on. The chill air nipped at her newly exposed ears and every now and then she would stop and look at her reflection in a shop window. Her hair was now a very dark brown, not quite as dark as Anna’s and not quite as spiky-short, but it changed her appearance considerably.