So much for your people skills, Tony thought wryly. He didn’t expect his killer to be over-endowed with the social graces, but he’d hoped to draw him out a little more. There was nothing to confirm or refute their suspicion of the skipper of the Wilhelmina Rosen. Unless you counted that slightly morbid mourning pennant, which Tony was inclined very much to do. It was interesting that Mann had claimed his grandfather had died two years before. The sinister flag didn’t look nearly bedraggled enough to have been hanging there for weeks, never mind months. If Mann had changed the pennant regularly, it might be a way of keeping his grandfather’s death fresh in his mind. But there might be a more sinister explanation. Perhaps the pennant wasn’t for the old man. Perhaps it was for Marie-Thérèse Calvet. He had a feeling in his bones that he had just exchanged pleasantries with a serial murderer. Certainly Mann exhibited some of the characteristics he would have expected to find in a personality-disordered killer – the reluctance to engage, the refusal to meet his eyes, the social awkwardness. But these could simply be the marks of a shy man. Bottom line? They had barely a shred of evidence to support his gut instinct.

Probably the only thing they could do now was to keep Mann under surveillance until he targeted his next victim. It was time for Marijke to put ambition to one side and whistle up the cavalry. He’d better call her, he realized. First, however, he had to finish making his stroll round the marina look innocent. Tony turned away from the Wilhelmina Rosen and walked on along the quayside, occasionally pausing to study one or other of the barges. It was boring, but necessary. Like so much in the profiler’s life, he thought with a smile. But what was a dose of tedium compared to the high of saving lives?

Krasic swung the big Mercedes into the marina and cruised slowly along the perimeter. ‘I know this place,’ Krasic said. ‘We’ve kept barges here before.’ Suddenly, he pointed over to the side of the quay where a man with a camera was pottering along studying the boats. There he is. ‘That fucking bastard Hill,’ he said.

‘That’s him?’ Tadeusz sounded incredulous. ‘The little guy in the stupid tweed jacket?’

‘That’s him, I swear.’

‘Give me your gun.’

‘What?’ Krasic was wrong-footed. He was the enforcer, not Tadzio.

‘Give me your gun.’ Tadeusz held out his hand impatiently.

‘You’re not going to shoot him in broad daylight?’ Krasic asked. The mood his boss was in, anything was possible.

‘Of course I’m not going to shoot him. Just give me the gun. When I get next to him, bring the car alongside.’