Scholz was on the phone but gestured for Fabel to take a seat. From what Fabel could gather from Scholz’s side of the telephone conversation, it had to do with the Cologne Police Karneval float and Scholz was still not at all happy with its progress. It struck Fabel that this subject, more than the murders he was investigating, seemed to have Scholz wound up tight. He was not someone that Fabel would otherwise imagine ever becoming stressed.

‘Morning …’ Scholz said gloomily as he came off the phone. ‘You ready to talk to these Internet people?’

‘Yep. But Tansu said she wants to talk to us before we go out.’

Scholz shrugged. ‘There’s another call we should make today. I did a bit of checking into the escort agency our chum at the hotel gave us last night. I think this will interest you quite a bit.’

‘Oh?’

‘The À la Carte escort agency is operated by a certain Herr Nielsen, a German national. Tansu’s looking into his background. But the real owners are a couple of Ukrainians called Klymkiw and Lysenko. No criminal records but they are suspected of heavy involvement in organised crime. Particularly people-smuggling. So you won’t need three guesses who the organised-crime division reckon Klymkiw and Lysenko work for?’

‘Vitrenko.’

‘Exactly. The boys at organised crime have asked that we handle this with extreme care.’

‘You spoke to organised-crime division? I take it you didn’t say anything about Maria Klee?’

‘For now. And it was just our organised-crime guys. The Federal Crime Bureau don’t know we’re talking to Nielsen. But there’s a limit to how long I can withhold that. Anyway, as far as we can see, À la Carte Escorts operates legally and its girls pay the regulation tax. Or at least the ones who are officially on their books.’ Scholz grinned. ‘The trade in human flesh was first made fully taxable in Cologne, as you probably already know.’

Fabel nodded. Cologne had been the first German city to levy income tax on sex-industry workers.

‘We’re quite proud of our role in pioneering a tax on sex. At first it was impossible to assess exactly how much any given prostitute earned …’ Scholz continued. ‘I mean, can you imagine a federal tax form with a section on how many blow jobs you performed and for what price in the last fiscal year? The tax boys calculated a possible range of earnings and came up with an average. So now there’s a flat-rate tax of one hundred and fifty Euros per month per hooker. I can tell you, even with all the undeclared earnings, Cologne has been raking it in. What I’ve always tried to work out is: does that make the Bürgermeister a pimp?’

Scholz’s musings were interrupted when Tansu came into the office.

‘At long bloody last I’ve got somewhere with Vera Reinartz, the medical student who was raped in ’ninety-nine.’