He was talking explicitly now, Carol realized with quiet delight. Somehow, she’d penetrated his defences. It never occurred to her that part of the reason for his candour was that she was on his turf; if she proved to be dangerous, she could be closed down permanently without a trace. Had she thought of this possible consequence, she would never have had the courage to up the stakes as she did. ‘I’m glad we understand each other. But before we talk terms and details, I want to see how you operate. You can sacrifice me any time it suits you with a call to the British authorities. So I need to be sure that I’m linking up with an outfit that is every bit as professional as mine.’

It was a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down between them. Tadeusz stared at her long and hard, watching the changing light from the fire play across those features at once both strange and yet as familiar as his own. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

‘Like I said. You’ll have something on me. I show you mine, you show me yours. Take your time. Don’t decide now. Think about it. Sleep on it. Do what you have to do to satisfy yourself that I’m on the level. But if you’re not prepared to let me see for myself that you can run a serious operation, I’m not taking a chance on you.’

He looked at her, his face unreadable. Carol wondered if she’d pushed too hard, too fast. Had she lost him before she even had him on the hook? Eventually, his lips curled upwards in a smile. ‘I’ll see what can be arranged. But for now, let’s concentrate on paying our debt to pleasure.’

A surge of pure exhilaration swept through Carol. She was really getting somewhere, and it was a great feeling. She tucked her feet under her in the big leather chair and opened the menu. ‘Why not?’ she said.

The worst thing about profiling, Tony thought as he read the detailed message from Marijke, was the deaths that he couldn’t prevent. His way of working was intense, burrowing under the skin of the perpetrator, finding a meaning in behaviour the rest of the world condemned as monstrous or perverse. It was as if he was conducting a dialogue with the dead that made it possible for him to have some sort of intercourse with the mind of the living killer. That, theoretically, should provide the police with a signpost they could place on their own map of the information they had gathered, a signpost that would point them in the right direction. And so, when another name was added to the roll call of victims, it was impossible not to take it as a measure of personal failure.