Anna went through the statement, including Tschorba’s confession, the ballistics and forensics report and the initial observations from Möller, the pathologist. Fabel took in very little. It was the Murder Commission mantra of dry facts and figures, of times and causes of death, of wounded flesh and rendered fabric. He had heard it so, so many times before. His thoughts still held him on a landing of a block of flats in Jenfeld with a young MEK trooper just starting his career as Fabel was ending his. He found he could not forgive himself for making sweeping judgements about Breidenbach’s motivations and ambitions. Fabel thought about Breidenbach’s youth, about how fit he had been, and then imagined him lying grey and blood-drained on Möller’s stainless steel autopsy table, sliced open, the vestigial warmth from his inner organs dissipating into the cool autopsy-room air.

After Anna’s briefing, he asked Werner to come into his office. This had become an almost daily ritual since Fabel’s resignation: the gradual transfer of responsibility to his friend. It had always been Maria that he had envisaged taking over, but that was simply not going to happen. He updated Werner on the caseload, confirming that Anna and Henk Hermann should see through the Breidenbach murder. When they were finished Fabel switched on his voicemail and took his jacket from behind the door.

‘I’m finishing for the afternoon. Got shopping to do,’ he explained to Werner. He indicated his desk, the files still lying on it from their meeting. ‘Why don’t you do your paperwork there? Might as well get used to it.’

11.

Ansgar busied himself in the kitchen. To an outsider, a restaurant kitchen would seem the definition of chaos: orders shouted over the sound of food sizzling or boiling, cookers and ventilators running at industrial noise levels, staff weaving between each other in a rushed ballet. But for Ansgar, his kitchen was the only place of true order that he knew. The dance of the kitchen staff, the rhythm of pan and oven: he orchestrated it all. No one ever had to wait too long for their order; no dish arrived under- or overcooked. His reputation was that of the artist tempered by the perfectionist.

Ansgar had never married. He had never met anyone who would have understood his particular needs. And those needs would have eventually emerged. There had been women, but again he had kept his behaviour within the range of that which should be expected. For the other needs, for his true needs, there had been the women he had paid. And he had had to pay well. But Ansgar’s lack of a normal romantic life had meant he had no wife. The closest he had to a child was Adam, whom he was training. Adam was nineteen, eager and hardworking. Ansgar found in Adam someone to whom he could pass on the sacred knowledge of the chef de cuisine.

Ansgar had set the machinery of the kitchen in motion for luncheon. Each member of staff undertaking their preparatory roles. He took Adam to one side, taking this time to induct his protégé in yet another level of the culinary arts.