Fabel smiled. But his mind was still elsewhere, putting together an image of a woman in his mind. He knew exactly the type. The type the Cologne cannibal would target next, unless Scholz was able to get to him first.

3.

The couple in the corner kept distracting Andrea from her calculations. Every time she totalled the takings for the previous month a raised male voice would make her lose her place. Last month had not been as good as she had hoped. The café did good but simple food and she had put on a basic Christmas menu of traditional favourites and had decorated the place, but the café was just that little bit too far out from the city centre to attract the masses of tourists that came for Cologne’s Christmas Market. Even the bank of flat-monitored computers that she had installed along the high counter at the back of the café had failed to pay for themselves. She was struggling to break even and it annoyed her that she needed her ‘extra’ income to supplement what she made from the café.

Andrea gave up on her calculations and checked her cellphone. There was a text message from the agency: two bookings. The one for tomorrow night was annoying because of the ridiculously short notice, but it was the second booking that froze Andrea’s attention. A special date. Weiberfastnacht. Why would someone want to book Women’s Karneval Night? Why did it have to be that date of all dates? She texted back to the agency saying she could make the booking tonight if they sent her details. The other one … The other one she would have to think about.

The sound of raised voices snapped her attention back to the café.

The couple had been building up to it. Or rather the man had been building up to it. They had only ordered coffee and the scene had all the hallmarks of them having sought out the café as nothing more than a place for them to sit and carry on the one-sided argument they had clearly been having outside. Andrea studied them: he was a loathsome little toad; she was surprisingly pretty to be with the likes of him. But soft. Andrea had begun by occasionally glancing in their direction; listening to the odd exchange as she had worked the tables. But as their argument became louder, it became impossible to ignore. And it was beginning to disturb the other customers. With a sigh, Andrea closed her accounts and crossed the café.

‘Is there a problem?’ Resting her red-fingernailed hands on the table, Andrea leaned in close and spoke in a calm, quiet tone. The couple had been so engrossed in their heated exchange that they had not noticed Andrea approach. The young man turned his acne towards her. His eyes traced the contours of her body. Andrea was wearing a tight black T-shirt with the café’s logo on it. Her biceps bulged beneath the short sleeves, and her breasts were pulled into small, tight buns on her wide, taut pectoral muscles. There was a trace of a smirk on the man’s lips.