As usual when she was surfing, Petra was surprised to see how quickly the time had gone. Already she was four minutes late for her rendezvous with Marijke. Hastily, she made her way to the discussion room, where she found Marijke trying to avoid being drawn into a debate on European human rights legislation with two gay men and a bisexual woman. She signalled her arrival and double-clicked on Marijke’s name to bring her into a private space.

P: sorry to keep you waiting, i got lost on the web.

M: No problem. I only just got here myself. So, what is Carol Jordan like?

P: very professional. very smart. she’s very quick to pick things up, and i think she has the nerve to carry off this undercover job.

M: Is she easy to get along with?

P: very easy. you can tell she’s been a proper street cop, not one of the management who sits behind a desk and forgets what life is like for the rest of us. i think we’re going to be a good team. she’s not afraid to listen to advice.

M: I have my fingers crossed for you. Did you get the chance to talk to her about the murders?

P: yes, jordan had a good idea about that. she thinks you should persuade your boss to send the details of this murder to europol with a request for any information about similar cases. then europol will circulate all the other member forces, and i can come up with the heidelberg and bremen connections quite legitimately. what do you say?

M: You think it will work?

P: i think it’s the only way to cover our backs. once it’s out in the open, it’ll take them weeks to set up a proper task force because nobody will want to give up jurisdiction, and they’ll all be fighting over which country is the lead investigator. meanwhile, we can get on with our own investigation. jordan is going to ask her dr hill to do a profile for us, so we will have a head start. we still have a chance to do ourselves a big favour here, but nobody can point the finger at us for doing anything we shouldn’t have.

M: I suppose it makes sense. But it won’t be easy to persuade Maartens to look to Europol for help. He has very old-fashioned ideas about organization. He’s against anything that takes police work off the streets and into the office.

P: so you have to make it look like there’s something in it for him. maybe he’d like the glory of being the first person to spot that there might be a serial killer out there? because it’ll be his name on the report, not yours, right?