Having consulted a map, Tilsner reckoned it would normally take him about half an hour – perhaps a little more – to drive the thirty kilometres or so to Pirna. But as he saw several centimetres of snow lying in the police car park, and on top of the Wartburg itself, he revised that estimate upwards. Maybe that was all it was. Müller had got stuck in the snow. Yet Tilsner could see that the streets of Dresden, although slushy, still had traffic running freely and the buses still appeared to be working. Something didn’t add up.

He used his gloved hands to clear enough snow from the windscreen, side and rear windows and mirrors to be able to see, and then fired the car up and began to drive.

*

Tilsner’s big advantage in trying to follow in Müller’s footsteps was that he knew how her mind worked. He could predict the steps she would have taken to find the owner of the bus ticket and purse. They didn’t have a name, and the description given by Petra Abt had been pretty useless. And that was only the woman in the argument. There was absolutely nothing to say it was the same woman who’d lost the purse. In fact, Tilsner would stake money that it wasn’t. Karin had decided it had been enough to start what was in all probability a wild goose chase – his task was to try to follow the same trail.

He knew he was on the right tracks when one of the bus drivers mentioned a pretty female detective who’d been asking the same questions. Then he found the second driver – who’d given Karin the woman’s first name and had pointed out the block she lived in. Now he just had to narrow down the apartment number.

All the time, his sense of foreboding grew. She clearly hadn’t just been delayed by the snow – unless their paths had crossed without him realising, and she was now on her way back to Dresden. Some sixth sense, though, told him something was wrong. He didn’t want her to meet a lonely end in this windswept, snowswept, concrete maze on the edge of Pirna. For one thing, he enjoyed working with her. Down the years, he’d grown very fond of her – even though she could be infuriating at times. Was he being disloyal in the plans he was making with Manfred to get a chance to see his own kids again? Probably. But one day she might understand. For now, it was her immediate wellbeing that was his primary concern.