Maria glared defiant hate at The Nose, focusing on staying conscious and feeling the blood from the gash on her forehead trickle down the side of her face. Neither of them were in any doubt that she wanted to kill him, but The Nose simply gazed back at her impassively before turning and leaving with the bowl and the spoon. After he left, the light went out. Maria remembered there was a switch just outside the door. She was grateful for the sudden total darkness. She could sleep without cowering beneath the stinking blanket. She lay back in the pitch black and vowed not to touch the wound on her head.

Something was happening to her. It was as if the pain was shaping her resolve, sharpening her mind. She felt new clarity, a new purity of thought. Mortification of the flesh, they called it. The pain became like a background noise: the further she placed herself from it the more dislocated from her physical being she would become. Maria focused all her energy on her thoughts. There had to be a way out of this.

8.

‘You know Oliver Lüdeke?’

‘Yes …’ Andrea looked into the air as if seeing into the past. She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it. Lüdeke. You’re sure?’

‘Yes,’ said Tansu. ‘There’s no doubt about it. How did you know him?’

‘We were medical students together.’ Andrea crossed her legs and the hem of her skirt rode up a little. Fabel noticed that a few centimetres of the top of her thigh were exposed above her stocking, the skin tanned dark over a ripple of muscle.

‘Where are you going tonight?’ he asked. ‘I mean, if it’s an important appointment, then we could come back later, or even tomorrow.’ Fabel used the word ‘appointment’ just as she had. Not ‘date’. Not ‘meeting with friends’.

‘No, it’s fine. I’ve explained that I’ll be delayed.’ She turned back to Tansu. ‘When I say we were medical students together, I mean he was a couple of years ahead of me. But we all knew him. He was a bit of a heart-throb for a few of the female students.’

‘You too?’ asked Fabel.

Andrea fixed him with her hard, masculine stare. ‘I suppose. I was like that back then. Soft. But he never seemed to notice me. I can’t believe that he …’ Her expression hardened even more. ‘The bastard. Leave me alone with him for half an hour and I’ll save you all a lot of time and trouble. Why? Why did he do that to me?’

‘It would appear that Lüdeke is a very sick individual,’ said Fabel. ‘You’re probably not his only victim, and some of the others didn’t survive. But it looks like we’re going to have some difficulty proving that.’