‘That was the connection between the rape and the murders. Like I said to Benni: cause and effect. Lüdeke raped Andrea and subjected her to his perversion, biting her repeatedly. She hated herself, or rather herself as Vera, and she mimicked Lüdeke’s attack on her. Except she took it further. She took flesh from each victim and ate it. A little extra twist she picked up after her encounter with Ansgar Hoeffer.’

‘It was Jan who figured it out,’ said Scholz. ‘We came rushing to your rescue, but from what I hear you didn’t need rescuing.’

‘It was a close call,’ said Tansu, rubbing her throat.

‘You need to see a doctor?’ asked Fabel.

‘No – I need to see a barman. But I suppose we’ll have to get some paperwork sorted out first.’

6.

The bar was small, bustling and noisy. It was exactly what Fabel needed. It was three in the morning and the party was still in full swing. Scholz, Fabel and Tansu had to lean forward and shout to be heard above the noise.

Andrea had been processed and was in the cells. Scholz had arranged for a psychiatric assessment to be done as soon as possible. Which wasn’t going to be the following day. Even psychiatrists took time off to go insane during Karneval, apparently. Fabel and Scholz explained to Tansu about the wound to Ansgar’s buttock and his sexual compulsion to be eaten; how À la Carte, with its reputation for catering for clients’ more unusual needs had recruited Andrea and how Ansgar had become a client for one disfiguring night.

Now Andrea sat in her cell silent, answering no questions, responding to nothing. Fabel thought it was possible that maybe she didn’t even know what she had done. They had found a diary in her apartment: the usual egomaniacal ravings, but they suggested that the Clown saw himself as male, and as totally distinct from Andrea’s personality. Just as Andrea had forced her third-person, past-tense existence as Vera Reinartz from her identity.

‘What, multiple personality?’ asked Tansu. ‘I thought that was all fake.’

‘Dissociative Identity Disorder is the proper name for it,’ said Fabel. ‘And the Americans are great believers in it. But you’re right, it’s not accepted to the same extent by psychiatrists outside the US. My guess is, though, that Andrea is going to try to use it as a defence to avoid prison. Maybe the dumb act in the cells is exactly that, an act.’

They sat at a corner of the bar and Fabel found his Stange glass filled regularly with Kölsch beer without being asked. He grinned at the raucous songs in a dialect he didn’t understand and he realised, joyfully, that he was very probably drunk. Tansu was next to him at the bar and every time she leaned into him to make herself heard he could feel the warmth of her body.