‘I don’t think it matters where her body is. Truth is, she’s not in it any more. I’m sorry, Jan. I really am.’

‘Thanks, Benni.’

Tansu Bakrac came over to them. Fabel noticed that Scholz moved off discreetly to leave them to talk.

‘You okay?’ Tansu asked. She placed a hand on his arm.

‘No. Not really. I’m going to head back to Hamburg. I’ll be back in a week or two to tie things up with Benni. Listen, Tansu, about what happened …’

She smiled and nodded towards the bonfire. ‘This is the Nubbelverbrennung. All the sins and foolishness of the Crazy Days get burned up. Here. Tonight. Have a good life, Jan.’

‘You too, Tansu.’ Fabel kissed her and then watched as she walked back to her friends, the firelight etching the outline of her body.

Epilogue

Hamburg.

Fabel sat with Maria, by the window. He held her hand and looked into her eyes but she simply looked past him and out of the window. Through the glass lay the shapes of the hospital extension, the outbuildings, the large triangle of grassed grounds and the green froth of bushes that marked the hospital boundaries. Beyond that lay the roadway that rumbled continuously and faintly with traffic. But Fabel knew that although Maria seemed to be looking at this unremarkable view she was not seeing it. He didn’t know what she was seeing. Maybe it was that field near Cuxhaven. Maybe it was a garden or a favourite place from her childhood in Hanover. Wherever it was, it was visible only to Maria; it existed only in the world that she had withdrawn to. But what frightened Fabel was the all too credible thought that Maria might have been seeing nothing at all: that she had withdrawn to a void.

Fabel talked to Maria. He talked about getting her better now that she was back in Hamburg. Dr Minks was going to help with her treatment. The Polizei Hamburg had arranged it all. Maria still didn’t answer but continued to look out of the window at the view across to the road, or at nothing at all. Fabel continued to talk about the recovery that he knew would never come, or at least not completely. He talked about the colleagues that he knew she would never work with again. He talked with the same forced calmness with which he had spoken to her so very long ago as she lay close to death in the field by Cuxhaven. Except this time, he knew, he could not save her.

Every now and again Maria would smile, but Fabel knew it was at nothing he had said, rather at something in the deep and distant inner world that she now inhabited.

It rained in Hamburg that day. Fabel met Susanne in the bar around the corner from his apartment in Pöseldorf. Neutral territory.