‘All right,’ I said. ‘We’ll talk to them. But first there are two aspects to this case that I want us all to consider. One is that these girls disappear and then their bodies are found all over the city. Well, that tells me that our killer is using a car. The other aspect is that as far as I am aware, we’ve never had any reports of anyone witnessing the abduction of a victim. No reports of a girl being dragged kicking and screaming into the back of a car. That seems to me to indicate that maybe they went willingly with the killer. That they weren’t afraid. Now it’s unlikely that they all knew the killer, but quite possibly they might have trusted him because of what he was.’

‘A priest, maybe,’ said Korsch. ‘Or a youth leader.’

‘Or a bull,’ I said. ‘It’s quite possible he could be any one of those things. Or all of them.’

‘You think he might be disguising himself?’ said Korsch.

I shrugged. ‘I think that we have to keep an open mind about all of these things. Korsch, I want you to check through the records and see if you can’t match anyone with a record for sexual assault with either a uniform, a church or a car licence plate.’ He sagged a little. ‘It’s a big job, I know, so I’ve spoken to Lobbes in Kripo Executive, and he’s going to get you some help.’ I looked at my wristwatch. ‘Kriminaldirektor Müller is expecting you over in VC1 in about ten minutes, so you’d better get going.’

‘Nothing on the Hanke girl yet?’ I said to Deubel, when Korsch had gone.

‘My men have looked everywhere,’ he said. ‘The railway embankments, the parks, waste ground. We’ve dragged the Teltow Canal twice. There’s not a lot more we can do.’ He lit a cigarette and grimaced. ‘She’s dead by now. Everyone knows it.’

‘I want you to conduct a door-to-door inquiry throughout the area where she disappeared. Speak to everyone, and I mean everyone, including the girl’s schoolfriends. Somebody must have seen something. Take some photographs to jog a few memories.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying, sir,’ he growled, ‘that’s surely a job for the uniformed boys in Orpo.’

‘Those mallet-heads are good for arresting drunks and garter-handlers,’ I said. ‘But this is a job requiring intelligence. That’s all.’

Pulling another face, Deubel stubbed out his cigarette in a way that let me know he wished the ashtray could have been my face, and dragged himself reluctantly out of my office.