‘I didn’t say you could provide that information or offer direct access to it. I said you offer a means to that end. The other purpose you can fulfil is more final … I intend, when I’m finished with you, to make an example of you. As I have done with others, including Buslenko, I will show through you what I do to anyone who sets themselves against me. What did you think you could have achieved?’ Vitrenko looked down on Maria as if he could not understand her stupidity. ‘I let you live. That night in the field when you tried to stop me. Did you think it was an accident that my knife missed your heart? Have you any idea how many hearts I have punctured? Sliced open like an apple?’

Maria struggled to her feet. She tried not to think how her emaciated blue-cold body must have looked. ‘Why don’t you just get on with it?’ she said defiantly. ‘Why don’t you just kill me?’

Again Vitrenko’s hand slashed across Maria’s face. She felt dizzy and staggered from the force of the blow. Something trickled down her temple and cheek.

‘Weren’t you paying attention to what I said? I want access to the so-called “Vitrenko Dossier” held by the BKA.’

‘Why? You don’t need those – I can tell you everything there is to know about you. You think you’re Genghis Khan, or Alexander the Greek or shit like that. Do you know what they say about you in those files? That you’re nothing more than a nut-job. A former junior officer with a Napoleon complex. You’re no soldier, Vitrenko. You’re a common crook.’ Maria felt good that her voice hadn’t betrayed how frightened she was.

Vitrenko smiled. ‘Well, thanks for the insight, Frau Klee, but I am much more interested in what intelligence has been gathered by the task force about my operations. I need access to this dossier. Not the one we took from Buslenko. The full German version.’

‘Tell me this, Vitrenko: if you’re such a criminal mastermind, how come you let me kill your deputy?’

‘Molokov?’ Vitrenko grinned. ‘I didn’t let you kill him … I made you kill him. And I did so because I believe Molokov was doing a deal with the German authorities. I think he planned to deliver me up to them. I don’t know for sure, but I think he was the one passing on information. He was ambitious and treacherous. I needed to dispose of him and, well, it amused me to have you do it for me. And it fitted with our little charade. Tell me, Frau Klee, your willingness to lose your life when we were back there in the workshop with Molokov … was that your enthusiasm to save me, as Buslenko, or kill me, as Vitrenko?’

‘Work it out yourself.’