‘No, I mean, there’s no need.’ Carol took in the puzzlement on Petra’s face. ‘They didn’t tell you, did they?’

‘Tell me what?’

Carol rubbed her towel over her damp shoulders and leaned back against the hot wooden wall. ‘I have an eidetic memory for speech.’

‘I don’t understand this word, eidetic’

‘I have total recall of whatever I hear. I can transcribe a conversation verbatim, as long as I do it within a few days of it taking place. I don’t need to be wired, because I can remember everything.’ Seeing Petra’s dubious look, Carol continued. ‘It’s been scientifically tested. This is no party trick, it’s for real.’ She closed her eyes. ‘“You know, they told me you looked like Basler,”’ she said in an approximation of Petra’s accent, ‘“and it’s true, your photograph does resemble her. But in the flesh, it’s uncanny. You could be her twin sister. You are going to blow Radecki away. I swear to God, he is going to be freaked out when he sees you.”

‘“Let’s hope it’s in a good way,”’ she continued in her own voice. Then back to Petra’s tones. ‘“Oh, I think so. I don’t see how he could resist.”’

Petra wiped clear the sweat that threatened to overflow the dam of her eyebrows and frowned. ‘How can this be possible?’

Carol shrugged. ‘There’s some quirk in my brain that lets me replay conversations word for word. I don’t know why. No one else in the family can do it. Just me.’

‘That’s an amazing gift for a cop,’ Petra said.

‘It does come in handy,’ Carol admitted. ‘So you see, there’s never any fear that I’m going to be exposed wearing a wire. Because I don’t need one.’

‘I thought your written report was very comprehensive,’ Petra said.

‘Only trouble is, it takes forever to transcribe.’ Carol rolled over on to her stomach. ‘Thanks for sorting out an apartment for Tony in my building.’

‘It was the least I could do after you arranged for him to come over and help us. He doesn’t waste any time, does he?’

Carol smiled. ‘He’s very driven. When he commits to something, he sleeps, eats and breathes it.’

‘I just hope that together we can come up with something before he kills again.’ Petra clenched her hands into fists. ‘I’m starting to take this very personally.’

Krasic walked into the Einstein Café just off Unter den Linden and scanned the room. He saw Tadeusz sitting alone in one of the wooden booths beyond the bar counter. He shouldered his way past staff and customers and slid in opposite his boss. Tadeusz looked up and gave him a preoccupied smile. ‘Hi, Darko,’ he said. ‘How was the trip?’