Maria sat outside the bar. She guessed that, living so near, Viktor would be a regular. She was not disappointed. She took a note of the time he left the apartment with his tarty girlfriend; it was almost exactly the same time that he had come into the bar on Sunday. Maria felt sick. The weight of the food she had eaten sat heavily in her gut. She had taken dinner in the restaurant before coming out and that, combined with the two other meals she had eaten that day, was causing her unaccustomed body to protest. But it was nerves more than anything that was making Maria nauseated. She could not believe that she was about to do what she was about to do. She had spent the entire afternoon experimenting with her new palette of cosmetics and trying on different wigs and outfits. But instinct had told her to go with her first idea in its purest form. She now looked like Anna Wolff. Anna, of course, was petite and had dark brown eyes, but Maria had successfully transformed herself into a taller version of her friend and colleague. She had applied a fake tan to her face and body and had given her newly dyed and cropped hairstyle the waxed, almost spiked look that Anna often had. She had filled out her lips with the same shade of fire-truck-red lipstick that Anna used and had emphasised her eyes with a quantity of shadow and eyeliner that she had never before in her life used. It was disconcerting to feel so much make-up on her face. Maria had even bought herself a biker-style leather jacket that hung too big over her thin frame and she had used a padded bra to boost her insubstantial curves under the black T-shirt.

This was it. This was the biggest test she could undertake. She got out of the car, locked it, and crossed the street to the bar.