The problem: the first murder that we know of took place in Heidelberg in Germany, the second in Leiden in Holland, the third (the possible) in Germany again, in Bremen. The connection was made because by chance Petra had seen details of the first case, and a friend of hers, Marijke, who is a cop in Holland, told her about the second case and Petra spotted the link. Then, when the third murder of a psychology lecturer was reported, it jumped out at her, even though she hasn’t got enough detail yet to be certain it fits. So, as you will see, there is a jurisdictional nightmare ahead. What’s more, it’s not formally out there yet because we’ve had to work out a way of officially linking the cases without dropping Marijke in the shit for talking out of school. Some time over the next few days, though, it’s going to be shunted through Europol, which should start the wheels moving.

But I don’t have to tell you how it will get bogged down in the machinery of bureaucracy. Petra thinks it’s unlikely that anyone else has made these connections yet, given how little communication there is between German police forces on the ground (sound familiar???). Petra also thinks, and I agree with her, that he’s going to take more victims before a properly constituted international task force can get moving. So she wants to try to short circuit that process with an unofficial investigation.

To a large extent they’re working in the dark. This killer seems to be very good at covering his tracks. There seems to be almost nothing from forensics in either case.

Why has Petra taken the risk of spilling the beans to me? Well, let’s not forget that she’s in intelligence. And she’d done her homework on me. Which led her inexorably to you.

Obviously, what the girls want – no, what they NEED – is a profile. And, like the song says, nobody does it better.

And Petra wants the best.

It’s a chance to get back into the game, Tony. And it would be a safe environment to do it in. Because it would be entirely unofficial, you’d be working out of the public eye, nobody looking over your shoulder expecting instant results. No stories in the press pressurizing you to come up with the goods. Simply a low-key piece of work that might just save some lives.

Of course, if the girls do manage to pull something off, you’d get the credit, which would maybe open some doors for you in Europe.