‘Some. Never in English. My English isn’t good enough. But I love the story of Macbeth. I remember seeing the Orson Welles version dubbed into German, when I was a kid. I just loved the character. So totally evil and ruthless. But given the case we’re looking at Titus Andronicus would be a more appropriate text.’

Fabel smiled. Scholz’s impressive knowledge of Shakespeare was at odds with his appearance and demeanour.

‘At one time I thought about becoming an actor,’ Scholz said, almost embarrassedly. ‘The idea of playing at being other people appealed to me more than being myself, I suppose.’

‘It’s a strange leap from acting to police work.’

‘It was never a serious idea,’ said Scholz. ‘My dad was a policeman and a very … well, practical sort of man. He kinda killed the idea and I sort of drifted in to being a cop.’

‘Theatre’s loss …’ Fabel smiled. He tried to conjure up the unlikely image of Scholz playing Macbeth, his ultimate villain. Suddenly another ultimate villain came to mind and Fabel felt something heavy in his gut. ‘How’s your other investigation going?’ He tried to make his tone as conversational as possible.

‘The Biarritz thing? It’s not, really. To be honest, I’m taking a bit of a back seat on that one. Other interests, you see … the BKA and Organised Crime are all over it like a rash.’

‘Oh?’

‘I mean, I’m still involved. Anything they find out that’s germane to the actual murder will be passed on to me, but I get the feeling there’s a much bigger picture. From the involvement of the BKA task force I reckon it’s to do with the Molokov–Vitrenko outfit.’

‘I know it well. Particularly Vasyl Vitrenko. Our paths have crossed.’

‘Really?’ Scholz raised his eyebrows. ‘A dangerous path to cross, from all accounts.’

Fabel smiled grimly. It was difficult to assess how much Scholz knew about his history with Vitrenko and he didn’t want to point him in Maria’s direction. At least, not yet.

‘This woman your victim was seen talking to …’ Again Fabel tried to keep his tone chatty. ‘You know, the one the witness said was talking to the victim a day or two before he was killed. You said she seemed to be official. Police or immigration. Did you ever get to the bottom of that?’

‘That’s the strange thing,’ said Scholz. ‘We still can’t link her to any official body. Maybe she just looked official.’

‘Yeah …’ said Fabel, taking a sip of his beer but watching Scholz’s face as he spread out the files on the coffee table. ‘Probably nothing to do with anything …’

‘Oh, I don’t know … This BKA Vitrenko–Molokov task force seems pretty desperate to find her. Or for me to find her for them.’

11.