That afternoon, he’d been visiting his flagship store at the top of the Ku’damm, where they did as much business selling videos as they did renting them out. He’d gone to check out the revamp that the most stylish shopfitters in the city had been carrying out, and he’d been impressed with the result. Clean lines, moody lighting and a coffee bar in the middle of the shop floor came together to produce the perfect ambience for browsing and spending.

After the tour of the shop, the manager had taken him up to his office for a celebratory glass of wine. As they’d entered, the TV screen had been showing a news channel. A reporter stood in a street Tadeusz recognized immediately as Friesenstrasse in Kreuzberg. Behind him was the unmistakable four-storey building that housed the GeSa, the detention centre where all newly arrested criminals were brought. It wasn’t somewhere Tadeusz was personally familiar with; he knew the street principally because he always bought his reading material at the Hammett crime bookshop there.

The reporter’s mouth was opening and closing soundlessly, his frowning face indicating the seriousness of what he was revealing to the waiting world. Then the picture changed to amateur video footage of a man being hustled out of a car towards the heavy grey door of the GeSa, a uniformed officer on either side of him. Suddenly, a woman ducked under the barrier that prevented cars from driving straight into the yard from the street. The officers on duty in the guard post were caught unawares, only emerging from their booth as the woman ran up behind the prisoner and his escort, waving something in front of her. She stopped a couple of yards away from them, directly behind the prisoner. In an instant, his head blossomed scarlet, like a blob of spaghetti sauce splattered on a kitchen surface. The police officers peeled away from him as he crumpled. They hit the deck with their pale faces turning towards the woman. Even at that range, it was possible to see their eyes stretching wide in panic.

Tadeusz stared at the screen, appalled. He’d only seen the sniper’s victim for a few seconds, and then only in three-quarter profile. But he knew who the dead man was. He was aware of the shop manager saying something and he turned away from the screen. ‘Sorry?’ he said.

‘I said, it’s funny how real-life shootings never look half as dramatic as the ones we sell.’ He reached for the open bottle of red wine on his desk and poured two glasses.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real-life shooting before,’ Tadeusz lied. ‘I’m quite shocked they’re showing it in all its glory on the early evening news.’