‘Do I have to guess, or are you going to tell me?’ Tadeusz’s voice was still light and cheerful. However grim Krasic looked, it wasn’t enough to dispel the warm glow of his afternoon with Caroline.

‘He’s been doing some more digging into the bike.’ Krasic didn’t have to specify which bike. They both knew exactly what he was talking about. ‘And what he’s come up with is very fucking dodgy, Tadzio.’

Tadeusz swung his feet on to the floor, sitting up in one smooth motion. ‘I’m listening,’ he said, suddenly solemn, suddenly catapulted from the pleasant haze of the afternoon into what felt horribly like inescapable reality.

‘It was British. Registered to the National Crime Squad, whatever that is.’

‘Organized crime,’ Tadeusz said automatically, his brain racing ahead of his mouth. ‘But the rider can’t have been here officially, otherwise Hauser would have been able to find out, surely?’

‘I don’t know,’ Krasic said. ‘If they were working with the Berlin criminal intelligence lot, Hauser wouldn’t have a fucking clue. You know how hard we’ve tried to get a mole in that squad, and we’ve never managed it.’

Tadeusz clenched his fist in a gesture of frustration. ‘And we still don’t know who was on the bike?’

‘No,’ Krasic admitted. ‘But, Tadzio, I really don’t like this. There are too many British connections hitting us right now.’ He enumerated on his short, square fingers. ‘First, Katerina gets killed by a British cop bike. Second, Colin Osborne fucks up our British connection by getting blown away in what looks more and more like a very moody shooting. I mean, nobody really seems to know what happened to Colin. It looked like a gangland execution and that’s what the cops put out. But nobody’s admitting to it, which is dodgy, in my book. And now, this British woman turns up, the spitting image of Katerina, and she just happens to be the missing link that solves all our problems. It’s too good to be true,’ he concluded with an air of incontrovertible certainty.