Fabel’s hotel room had the expected brightly coloured abstract print hanging on the wall. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at it as if it would yield the knowledge or the strength to help him work out what to do next. His head ached. It was Vitrenko’s sheer arrogance that astounded him: grabbing a senior police officer on a busy street and demanding that he betray everything he believed in.

As Fabel stared at the painting, he thought of The Nightwatch hanging in his mother’s parlour; about how he had forgotten what he had seen in the painting as a small boy. The protection of others from harm.

Fabel knew what he had to do but dreaded doing it. It went against every instinct he had. He picked up the phone and dialled.

‘Hello, Ullrich, Fabel here. About the Vitrenko Dossier …’

5.

Maria had realised, in those cold, dark, isolated hours, that she needed a sharp cutting edge to succeed in any attack. She had planned to sharpen the spoon, but that had been taken away along with, for a while, all hope. Then she had realised that, of course, she did have a sharp-edged weapon. It was just that using it had taken her to a place that was beyond human.

The grey-white walls were splashed with arcs of arterial blood. Sarapenko now reached out to Maria, desperate to touch another human being as she died. The spurts from her neck weakened: the outstretched hand dropped onto the grubby floor. Shakily, Maria dragged herself to her feet and wiped the blood from her mouth and face with the back of her sleeve. She took the automatic from its holster on Sarapenko’s body, trying not to look at the face stripped of its beauty. The face that she had ravaged. But Maria felt no horror. Again, it was as if she were unreal; simply watching herself. She staggered out into the main part of the unit, swinging Sarapenko’s automatic wildly around. There was no one. No Nose. Maria saw where the row of surveillance monitors still sat: now blank dark eyes. She ripped drawers from their runners, tore open cabinets until she found three more clips for the automatic, plus the two guns they had taken from her. There was a wastebasket in the corner and she frantically tossed its contents out onto the floor. She found a half-eaten roll, sodden with discarded coffee, with a shred of meat left inside. She stuffed it into her mouth and swallowed it half chewed, its stale flavour mingling with the lingering taste of Sarapenko’s blood in her mouth.