I take her through what led me here, and she listens whilst staring at the body.

Forensics are already moving in, their gloved hands like little creatures scurrying over the victim. Flashbulbs flicker. Measurements are taken. Fragments of microscopic stuff are plucked with pliers and dropped into evidence vials. The odd bit of banter proving that, in the end, there’s nothing special about death. Or at least not of those we don’t know. We move outside, away from it all, away from the aftershave and the smell of death.

My phone rings, Maastricht area code. Maastricht’s about two and a half hours away by car. It’s just about possible Benner could have got down there. I answer, expecting the worst, but a woman informs me Jill Zeeman’s been taken into protective custody. I’m told she’s asking about her brother. I tell the woman calling me to stall, but that someone will get back to her soon with news.

I hang up and get Vermeer up to speed.

‘So this wasn’t about a man killing women?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

This wasn’t about a man killing women; it wasn’t about the actual victims at all. They were just pieces in a larger game, the intention of which was to hurt the people who’d hurt him, make them feel what he’d felt at the death of his brother. I think about the need we humans have for wanting others to feel what we feel. Where does it come from? What purpose does it serve?

‘We need to get on to Benner. Let’s leave this lot to it.’

The car I brought is jammed in, so I toss the keys to the uniform wheeling out crime-scene tape and tell him to make sure it gets back to the station later. Vermeer’s car is parked further down and we walk there to find a police forensics van parked next to it. The back doors swing open and two forensics start unloading a large heavy-looking box. They’re being directed by a third man who seems to be giving a lot of instructions for what really is a simple lift-and-put-down job. As we get closer I recognize the one giving the spurious orders as Max Bakker. Last time I’d seen him had been on the island of Vlieland, up in the North Sea.

He jumps out of the van and walks over.

‘Thought you’d moved out of town.’

Bakker strokes his grey moustache and takes an enormous pull of the cigarette he’s had in his hand since I met him back at the first autopsy I ever attended all those years ago. I think by this stage if the man breathed in just air alone his system might go into panic.

‘Yeah. After fifteen years in Amsterdam I decided I needed a change, get some solitude into my life. Some peace.’

‘So what happened?’