A phone rang somewhere in the flat. It kept ringing. The negotiator had obviously arrived.

‘Shouldn’t you answer that?’ Fabel asked the crack in the door.

‘No. It’s a trap.’

‘It’s not a trap. It’s help. It will be one of my colleagues. Someone who can really help.’

‘I’ll only talk to you.’

Fabel ignored Breidenbach’s reproachful look. ‘Listen, Herr Aichinger. The person on the other end of the phone is much better qualified to help you out of this situation than I am.’

‘I said I’ll only talk to you. I know that whoever is on the phone is just going to try to psychobabble me into believing he’s my best friend. I’ll talk to you. Only you. I’ve heard about you, Herr Fabel. You’re the one who solved those murders last year.’

‘Herr Aichinger, I want you to open the door so we can talk face to face.’ Fabel paid no attention to Breidenbach’s frantic signalling.

‘They’ll shoot me.’

‘No, they won’t …’ But Fabel felt the need to look pointedly at Breidenbach. ‘I’m ordering them not to shoot unless you do. Please, Herr Aichinger. Open the door.’

There was a long silence.

‘Herr Aichinger?’

‘I’m thinking.’

Another pause. Then the tip of Aichinger’s rifle appeared as it nudged the door fully open.

‘I’m going to come and stand where you can see me, Herr Aichinger. I’m not armed.’ One of the other MEK troopers grabbed at Fabel’s jacket sleeve as he moved towards the door, but he snatched it free. Fabel’s heart pounded and he used every adrenalin-stretched second to take in as much as he could. The man standing in the hall was as unexceptional as it was possible to be. In his late thirties with dark hair cut short and gelled, he had what Fabel would have described as generic features: not so much a face in the crowd as the face of the crowd. A face you would forget as soon as he was out of sight. Georg Aichinger was someone you would never notice. Except now. Aichinger had a new-looking sports rifle in his hands. But he wasn’t pointing it at Fabel. His arms were stretched taut and his chin pushed upwards as he jammed the rifle barrel under his own jaw. His thumb quivered on the trigger.

‘Easy …’ Fabel held up his hand. ‘Take it easy.’ He looked past Aichinger, along the hall. He could see, projecting into the doorway, the feet of someone lying on the floor of the living room. Small feet. A child’s feet. Shit, he thought. The MEK commander had been right.

‘Georg. Give it up. Please … give me the gun.’

Fabel’s step forward made Aichinger tense. The thumb on the trigger stopped quivering. ‘If you come near me I’ll shoot. I’ll kill myself.’

Fabel looked back at the child’s feet. He felt sick at the sight of them. At that moment he didn’t care whether Aichinger blew his own brains out or not. Then he saw it. Tiny. So tiny he could have missed it. But he hadn’t. A small movement.