Fabel looked at Scholz’s half-empty plate and realised that he was going to have to talk less and eat more to catch up. ‘We used to have a more immediate relationship with our food. But now we live in an age when a particular type of exotic bean or berry or herb is flown halfway around the world just so that it can be a garnish on a dish. It’s difficult to imagine that for most of our history simply having enough food to survive has been our main preoccupation. That also includes our history of cannibalism. Like I said, we’ve all done it – every culture in the world has had some experience of eating human flesh. Yet it remains the greatest social and cultural taboo.’

Scholz lifted his fork and contemplated the chunk of lamb impaled on it. ‘I wonder what it tastes like … human flesh, I mean.’ He shrugged and popped the lamb into his mouth.

‘It’s similar to the taste of veal, I believe. Or pork,’ said Fabel. ‘Anyway, our killer doesn’t have the same lack of connection with his food source. The links in his food chain are all too solid. He sees these women, assesses their shape and selects them. He can taste them just by looking at them.’

‘So what are you saying?’ Scholz spoke through a mouthful of lamb. ‘That he eats them for the taste?’

‘No … or not just for that. I think he gets off sexually. But there’s a lot of other stuff mixed in. With military cannibalism, you kill a formidable foe on the battlefield and you eat him to absorb some of his strength. With ritual cannibalism, you eat part of the sacrificial victim to become connected to the divinity or the spirit of the victim … that symbolism is still there in Christian communion, a hangover from pagan beliefs. And, like I said, funerary cannibalism involves eating part of a deceased loved one so that they would live on through you.’

‘Or in you …’ said Scholz.

‘I think our killer has abstracted his sexual perversion and believes that he is enjoying a relationship with his victims far more intimate than he would by just having sex with them.’

‘By eating a slice of the victim’s arse he absorbs their spirit and becomes their soulmate?’ Scholz’s expression was earnest. Fabel laughed.

‘Something like that. But he had to start off somewhere. There is a chance that to begin with our guy was simply a sex offender … committing rapes, that kind of thing. Through time he might have added the cannibal element. Remember the Joachim Kroll case? In Duisburg in the late seventies?’

Scholz nodded.

‘Kroll was a rapist-murderer and he had an undetected career going back two decades. Then, at some point along the way, he decided to try some of his victims’ flesh. Interestingly, he took flesh from exactly the same part of his victims’ bodies – the buttocks and upper thighs.’