The manager laughed as he handed a glass to his boss. ‘I’m sure the moral guardians of the nation’s youth will be clogging the TV station switchboard with complaints as we speak. Cheers, Tadeusz. Good decision to choose those guys. They’ve made a great job of the shop floor.’

Tadeusz raised his glass mechanically, reaching for his mobile with his other hand. ‘Yes. Now I need to find a way to justify the expense of doing up the rest of the chain. Excuse me.’ He touched a couple of keys to speed-dial Krasic. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘We need a meeting. I’ll see you at my place in half an hour.’ He ended the call without waiting for Krasic’s response, then sipped his wine. ‘Lovely stuff, Jurgen, but I’m afraid I’ve got to run. Empires to build, new worlds to conquer – you know how it is.’

Twenty minutes later, he was pacing the floor in front of his TV screen, flipping channels to see if he could find a local news station that was running the footage of Kamal’s assassination. Finally, he caught the tail end of the video and immediately raised the volume. The studio anchorman took up the story. ‘The dead man, whose name has not yet been released, had been arrested in connection with the seven heroin deaths in the city in the past week. Sources close to the investigation say that the woman who fired the fatal shot was the girlfriend of one of the addicts who died after shooting up with contaminated drugs. Already, there are calls for an inquiry into how the woman found out about the arrest before the prisoner had even been taken into formal custody.’ He glanced down at his papers. ‘And now over to our correspondent at the Reichstag, where representatives have been debating new measures to combat the spread of BSE …’

Tadeusz hit the mute button. He’d heard all he needed to know. When Krasic finally arrived five minutes late, complaining about the traffic, he launched straight in. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

‘What do you mean, Tadzio?’ Krasic stalled. It was clear from the troubled look in his eyes that he knew exactly what his boss meant.

‘Fuck it, Darko, don’t play stupid games with me. What possessed you? Having Kamal taken out on the steps of the fucking police station? I thought we were trying to take the limelight off this investigation, not turn it into the lead story across the country? Jesus, you couldn’t have gone for a more public display.’

‘What else was I supposed to do? There wasn’t enough time to stage a convenient road accident…’ His voice tailed off as he realized what he’d said.