‘There’s not a problem,’ said Fabel. ‘Honestly. And don’t worry, I’m not having second thoughts about leaving the Polizei Hamburg. I’ve had a bellyful.’ He took a long sip of Pinot Grigio, leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes. The picture of sad, desperate, insane Georg Aichinger filled his mind. The same image that had haunted him throughout his dinner with Bartz.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Susanne in response to his sigh.

‘I can’t stop thinking about Aichinger. All that crap he talked before he shot himself. About waking up and realising that he wasn’t real. What the hell was all that about?’

‘Depersonalisation. We all get it to a degree at some point. Mainly through stress or overtiredness. In Aichinger’s case, it could be that he was going through something more profound. Maybe even a full-blown dissociative fugue.’

‘I thought that was when people lose their memory. Wake up in a new town with a new identity or lack or identity.’

‘It can be, sometimes. People who suffer a great trauma can go into a dissociative fugue. To forget the bad stuff they dump their entire memory. Without a memory you can’t remember who you are. You adopt a new identity without the biography of your real one.’

‘But Aichinger hadn’t lost his memory.’

‘No. But if he hadn’t killed himself he might have walked out of that door and disappeared. Not just from the world but from himself.’

‘God knows there have been times when I’ve wished I could have disappeared from myself. Standing in front of Aichinger while he blew his brains out was one.’ Fabel smiled bitterly.

‘Well, you are, in a way. As soon as you walk out of the Presidium for the last time and put police work behind you.’

‘Yeah …’ Fabel took another sip of wine. ‘And leave it all to the likes of Breidenbach.’

‘Who?’

‘The new breed.’ Fabel sipped his wine.

6.

Stefan pulled up outside the all-night convenience store attached to the petrol station. He’d been at work until an hour ago. Now he felt good: freshly shaved and showered; wearing a brand-new shirt and his best cologne. He had phoned Lisa and she had agreed he could come and stay the night. This was the only store he knew that stayed open this late and it always had a good range of wines.

He had been seeing Lisa for a couple of months now. She was a great girl. A good laugh. Smart, and pretty with it. They had been drifting along in a casual manner and he genuinely had fun in her company, but Stefan was beginning to think that Lisa had ideas of it becoming a more serious relationship. He didn’t want that. Or at least he thought he didn’t want it. Things were fine as they were and he wasn’t ready to get serious with anyone. Although sometimes the idea didn’t seem so bad. But the fact was that, at the moment, the only thing Stefan had time to be serious about was his career. He had tried to explain to Lisa how important being a policeman was to him. He was up for his Commissar’s exams in a couple of months and he had to get his head down to do some serious study. Not tonight. Tonight was going to be fun. But first he had to pick up the wine.