‘There has to be something.’ Fabel ran his hands through his hair.

‘Maybe Melissa Schenker wasn’t so obsessed with her shape,’ said Scholz. ‘She spent her life in her own little electronic universe where what she looked like didn’t matter. A world without form.’

‘Okay.’ Fabel read more of Melissa’s file. ‘What’s this … The Lords of Misrule?’

‘Her biggest hit. A role-playing computer game she developed. Very complicated. Apparently she was working on a sequel to it when she died.’

There was an image of the game’s cover. Three mythological types – a warrior, a priestess and some kind of warlock – stood on a mountain, a fantasy landscape swirling around them.

‘The Lords of Misrule …’ Fabel read the English title aloud again. ‘The world turned upside down. The Days of Chaos. The Fool Made King. It’s all very Karneval. Maybe this is where our connection lies. Melissa spent so much of her time in an electronic world, maybe that’s where she crossed paths with our killer and Sabine Jordanski.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

6–9 February

1.

Ansgar lay in Ekatherina’s bed and watched her sleep contentedly. Their lovemaking had been dramatic, violent, almost frenzied. Ekatherina had clearly taken it as the release of Ansgar’s pent-up passion for her. She was, of course, in part correct: he had been totally consumed by her flesh and had stood breathless before her nakedness, but what she hadn’t realised was that it had been only part of his passion that had been released.

The sex had been good for him. Or at least as good as any normal sexual activity could be for him. But, as he lay in the half-dark, looking at the shadowy sweep of Ekatherina’s hip, he felt the frustration of someone who had enjoyed an appetising starter yet had been denied the main course. But that first step had been taken. They were now intimate. Perhaps, just perhaps, in time he might be able to fulfil his darkest fantasy with her.

It was Sunday morning and Ansgar’s day off. Ekatherina left for her shift. She told him he could spend the day in her apartment and they would have Sunday night together. When she returned after her shift, tired, flushed from the heat of the kitchen and her skin shiny with sweat, Ekatherina said she would shower before coming to bed. Ansgar told her not to bother and the passion of the night before returned, redoubled.

They breakfasted the next morning on orange juice, coffee and bread rolls filled with a meat paste that Ekatherina said had come all the way from Ukraine. Sitting there at Ekatherina’s breakfast table, Ansgar felt suddenly melancholy. He saw himself as if through the window of the flat: sitting with a pretty girl several years his junior, breakfasting together like a normal contented couple. What pained him most was the fact that at that exact moment he was contented.