A man in a business suit left the store, talking into his cellphone, followed by an older couple. The ache and the craving that burned in Timo’s gut intensified. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his jacket and closed his fingers around the chill, hard steel.

Timo had also planned his thesis to balance this argument with a discussion of the United States, where the Constitution expressly allowed the citizen to bear arms, and therefore the means of independent physical force; consequently denying the state a monopoly on it. Yet the US existed and thrived as a nation.

He looked across the street. A car pulled up and a woman trotted into the store. She re-emerged a few moments later with a carrier bag and drove off. Timo felt a pang of something other than his body’s craving. It was his grief, his mourning of his past-tense self: the disciplined, clear-eyed, organised philosophy student with the world at his feet. But that had been then. Before the drugs.

Timo stepped out of the shadow of the corner, his thin shoulders hunched against the cold, and made his way across to the store, his fingers closing around the gun in his pocket.

5.

After they had made love, Fabel and Susanne sat in the living room of his flat and looked out over the dark water of the Alster and the glittering reflections that played on it. Susanne leaned her head on Fabel’s shoulder and he did his best to disguise the fact that for some reason he didn’t want her there. The feeling surprised him. He felt restless and irritable and had, for a moment, an almost irresistible urge to get into his car and drive out of the city, out of Hamburg, out of Germany. He’d had the feeling before, but he had always put it down to his work; an urge to put the horror and stress of it all as far from him as he could. But wasn’t that exactly what he had achieved? He had only a few weeks left to go and his escape would be complete. So why did he feel so panicky? And why was it, when he was supposed to be relishing a life free of murder, that he could not shake the call of the file he had half-hidden under the copy of the Morgenpost?

‘How was dinner with Roland?’ asked Susanne.

‘Wordy. Bartz likes to chat. I don’t know if he’s that keen on listening but, boy, can he talk.’

‘I thought you liked him.’ There was an edge to Susanne’s voice. Fabel had learned to be careful when talking about his new career with her: recently, any lack of conviction in his tone had been enough to start an argument.

‘I do. I mean, I did when he was a kid. But people change. Roland Bartz is a very different person now. But he’s okay. Just a bit full of himself.’

‘He’s an entrepreneur. It goes with the territory,’ said Susanne. ‘His company wouldn’t be so successful – and he couldn’t offer you the salary he’s offering – if he was riddled with self-doubt. Anyway, you don’t have to love the guy to work with him.’