nd now, if this report was to be believed, Margarethe's son had lost her in the most final of ways. Tony still couldn't take it in. There was a terrible element of happenstance in such a death.

It was too late for Margarethe. But it might not be too late for others. Never mind that it suited him to escape the press baying for comments on Jacko Vance. Never mind that he was desperate with boredom in his job. And never mind that he wanted to be near Carol. Saving lives was paramount.

For better or worse, he'd made his choice.

In the half-hour before she could expect to find Marijke in the chat room, Petra browsed the web, dipping in and out of various serial killer sites to see if she could find any correspondences between recorded cases and the particular fetishes of their own killer. But her search proved fruitless. The depraved minds whose activities were recorded in lurid detail hadn't indulged in death by this sort of drowning, nor could she find cases of pubic scalping, though she did discover that it had a name - gynelophism. Not much help there when it came to attempting to extract some motivation for their killer. As usual when she was surfing, Petra was surprised to see how quickly the time had gone. Already she was four minutes late for her rendezvous with Marijke. Hastily, she made her way to the discussion room, where she found Marijke tryhig to avoid being drawn into a debate on European human rights legislation with two gay men and a bisexual woman. She signalled her arrival and double-clicked on Marijke's name to bring her into a private space.

P: sorry to keep you waiting, i got lost on the web.

M: No problem. I only just got here myself. So, what is Carol Jordan like?

P: very professional, very smart, she's very quick to pick things up, and i think she has the nerve to carry off this undercover job.

M: Is she easy to get along with?

P: very easy, you can tell she's been a proper street cop, not one of the management who sits behind a desk and forgets what life is like for the rest of us. i think we're going to be a good team, she's not afraid to listen to advice.

M: I have my fingers crossed for you. Did you get the chance to talk to her about the murders?

P: yes, Jordan had a good idea about that, she thinks you should persuade your boss to send the details of this murder to europol with a request for any information about similar cases, then europol will circulate all the other member forces, and i can come up with the heidelberg and bremen connections quite legitimately, what do you say?

M: You think it will work?

P: i think it's the only way to cover our backs, once it's out in the open, it'll take them weeks to set up a proper task force because nobody will want to give up jurisdiction, and they'll all be fighting over which country is the lead investigator, meanwhile, we can get on with our own investigation. Jordan is going to ask her dr hill to do a profile for us, so we will have a head start, we still have a chance to do ourselves a big favour here, but nobody can point the finger at us for doing anything we shouldn't have.

M: I suppose it makes sense. But it won't be easy to persuade Maartens to look to Europol for help. He has very old-fashioned ideas about organization. He's against anything that takes police work off the streets and into the office.

P: so you have to make it look like there's something in it for him. maybe he'd like the glory of being the first person to spot that there might be a serial killer out there? because it'll be his name on the report, not yours, right?

M: Good idea. He could make it look like a triumph for traditional police work, if I persuade him right. I'll try in the morning.

P: let me know how it goes. M: Tomorrow night?

P: i'll try. make it late, though, midnight, if everything goes right, Jordan will be working late, which means i might have to as well, sleep well, babe.

M: Slaap ze, liefje. Tot ziens.

Tadeusz Radecki excused himself from the restaurant table when he saw that the number calling his mobile phone belonged to Darko Krasic. In the passage leading to the toilets, out of earshot of his respectable companions, he answered its insistent chirrup. 'Yes?'

'When will you be home, boss?' Krasic asked. 'I've got some news for you.'

'Good or bad?'

'It's nothing that needs urgent action.'

'Won't it wait till tomorrow?'

'I think you'll want to know this.' Tadeusz looked at his watch. 'Meet me there in an hour.'

'OK. See you then.' Krasic ended the call and Tadeusz walked back into the noisy restaurant. They were already at the coffee stage, so the party would be breaking up within the half-hour anyway. And since he had no intention of offering to escort home the single woman his four comfortably coupled friends had invited along for his benefit, there would be no problem in getting back home within the hour. Darko had sounded very enigmatic on the phone. But wondering about something he couldn't guess at was a waste of energy, and Tadeusz had never been inclined to worry about anything before he had to. He joined in the conversation round the table as if his call had been of supreme unimportance, but precisely thirty minutes later, he pushed back his chair and announced that he had an early start in the morning. He dropped a sheaf of banknotes on the table to cover his share of the bill, kissed all three women on both cheeks, hugged his male friends and left.

The familiar black Mercedes was sitting outside his apartment building when he turned the corner into the street. As Tadeusz approached the front door, Krasic emerged from the car and fell into step beside him. 'So, what's this mysterious news?' Tadeusz asked as they entered the ' lift.

'It'll keep for a few minutes longer,' Krasic said.

Tadeusz laughed. 'You are so cautious, Darko. I promise you, this lift isn't bugged.'

'It's not that. You might want a drink when you hear what I have to tell you.' 1

Tadeusz raised his eyebrows, but said nothing more until they were both inside his apartment. He poured two glasses of Armagnac and handed one to Krasic. 'Now, tell me what it is that is so terrible I need a brandy before I can hear it.'

Krasic looked less than his usual imperturbable self. 'It's bloody strange, that's what it is.' He walked over to a set of shelves where three photographs of Katerina were displayed in silver frames. 'I finally managed to get some information about the motorbike.'

Tadeusz experienced a convulsion in his stomach, a strange turbulence that seemed to rearrange his internal organs. Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't this. 'You have a name?'

'No, nothing that straightforward. Our man went back and talked again to the teenage boy who recognized the bike as a BMW. The kid was really enthusiastic. He kept offering to have hypnosis, to see if he could come up with any more details.'

'And?'

'It took a little while to get the session organized, but eventually, he got some woman to come along and put the boy into a trance. And the kid came up with quite a bit more detail.'

'Such as?' Tadeusz was leaning forward now, eager as a hound with a scent in his nostrils.

'Like, he noticed that you couldn't read the number plate because it was all smudged with mud. He said there was something funny about the number plate. He couldn't be any more clear than that, but he was very definite that there was something wrong.' Krasic turned away from the images of Katerina and sat down on the sofa. 'And he was able to describe the bike much better than he had before. Stuff like the shape of the exhausts, that sort of bollocks. Anyway, our man wrote it all down. Then he got on to BMW and asked what model of bike this matched up with. And this is where it gets very fucking strange.'

Tadeusz drummed his fingers on the wall. 'Strange how?'

'According to BMW, the description our man gave them didn't fit any bike they've ever made for sale in Germany. So, our man thinks it's all been a fucking total waste of time, getting this kid under the influence and picking his brain. Then the man from BMW calls him back.'

'Christ, Darko, get on with it,' Tadeusz growled.

'All right, all right, I'm getting there. The BMW guy had gone and checked with then* special projects people and it turns out they did once make a bike that fits the description. It was a limited edition of three hundred and fifty high performance bikes. Export only. They sold it hi the UK and Scandinavia. And get this - almost all the bikes were sold to law enforcement. For traffic cops and special ops.'

Tadeusz looked bewildered. 'What? That doesn't make any sense.'

'That's what our man said. He asked them how come an export-only bike was involved in an accident in Berlin. They didn't have a clue, but they gave him all the details of the bike. And when he ran it through vehicle registration, it turns out there isn't a single fucking bike with this spec registered in Germany.'

'So you're saying that whoever killed Katerina, chances are they did it on a foreign police bike?' Tadeusz took a deep swig of his brandy and paced the floor. 'This is insane. It makes no sense at all.'

Darko shrugged. 'I don't know. I've had longer to think about it than you have, and there is one explanation that sort of fits the facts. You know how these fucking motorbike cowboys get about their machines. It's like they're joined at the hip. You can imagine one of them deciding to take his undercover traffic bike on a little holiday. So, let's say for the sake of argument that it's a Brit. For a split second, he forgets he's driving on the wrong side of the road, he causes a major accident and he goes into total fucking panic and just steps on the gas. I mean, he's not even supposed to have the bike over here, and now he's fucked somebody up big time. Of course he's going to leg it fast as he can.'

'And you think that makes sense?' Tadeusz demanded belligerently.

Krasic shifted in his seat, spreading his overcoat wide and splaying his meaty thighs, maximizing his physical impact to cover his uncertainty. 'I can't think of any other explanation.'

'Neither can I. And that's what I don't like.' He slammed the flat of his hand against the wall. 'It's bullshit, however you look at it.'

'Tadzio, it was an accident. They happen all the time. You're just going to have to let it go.'

Tadeusz whirled round, his face a rictus of anger. 'Fuck that. Whether it was an accident or not, somebody should pay.'

'You'll get no argument from me on that. And if there was any chance of finding out who was riding that bike, I'd be the first in there, making the bastard pay. But he's out of our reach.'

Suddenly, all the fight went out of Tadeusz. He crumpled into a chair, head lolling back. A single tear gathered in the corner of one eye and slithered down his temple. Krasic got to his feet, awkward in the face of emotion. Tm sorry, Tadzio,' he said gruffly.

Tadeusz rubbed the tear away with the heel of his hand. 'You did your best, Darko,' he said. 'You're right. It's time to let go. Time to move forward.' He managed a faint smile. Til see you tomorrow. It's time I started thinking about the future.'

Though it pained Krasic to see his boss hurting, he walked out of the apartment with a spring in his step. It looked as though they could finally start concentrating on business again. He had one or two ideas of his own, and he guessed that the time would soon be ripe to broach them. If there was a niggle of concern at the back of his mind about the mysterious identity of the bike that had caused Katerina's death, he wasn't going to think about it now. Paranoia was for the weak, and Krasic knew he wasn't one of them.

Tony walked through the arrivals gate at Tegel Airport, scanning the meeters and greeters. Over to one side, he saw a tall, slim woman with spiky black hair holding a small placard that read, 'Hill.' He moved towards her, a tentative smile on his face. 'Petra Becker?' he asked.

She extended a hand and they shook. 'Dr Hill. It's a pleasure to meet you.'

'Tony, please,' he said. 'Thanks for coming out here to fetch me.'

'Not a problem. You saved me having to listen to one of my colleagues complaining that I gave him the impossible task of tracking down a missing six-yearold.

He raised his eyebrows in a question. 'I didn't think that was your kind of case.'

Petra chuckled. 'It's not normally. This particular six-year old is being held hostage by Carol's friend Radecki against her mother's good behaviour. And I want her mother's cooperation, so I have to find the child. But you don't need to think about that. You've got more important things to deal with. Anything I can do to help, just ask.'

She'd already done plenty, he thought, as he followed her to her car. After reading Carol's e-mail, he'd booked himself on the first flight to Berlin, told his departmental secretary there had been a sudden death in the family and that he was taking compassionate leave as of now. He knew he couldn't call Carol, but he had Petra Becker's name and he knew she worked for Criminal Intelligence. A few phone calls had tracked her down, and she had reacted with delight to the news that he was coming to Germany. He hadn't bothered to explain the reason for his sudden decision; he didn't want her changing her mind about having him on board because he had too close a relationship to one of the victims.

Til need somewhere to stay,' he had told Petra. 'It'd be helpful if you can book me into the same place as Carol. I know she's probably being followed, so it's important that there's somewhere we can meet where we're not going to be spotted. If we're in the same building, it should be easier for us both.'

As they left the airport behind, Petra said, 'I managed to get you an apartment in Carol's building. You're a couple of floors below her, but it's easy to come and go without anyone seeing you.'

'Thanks,' he said. 'I understand you two are meeting in a women's health club to do your debriefs?'"

'That's right. I'm afraid you won't be able to join us there,' Petra said with a grin.

'No, but I can see Carol in the apartment block, and I can presumably meet you at your office? I'm going to need access to all the case materials that you can get for me, so that would probably be the best place.'

Petra pulled a face. 'That might be a bit of a problem, Tony. You see, officially I'm not supposed to have anything to do with the serial killer cases yet. So if you show up at the office, my boss is going to ask some very difficult questions. How would you feel about working in my apartment? It's,j quite civilized, really. All the materials I have are there anyway.'

'That's fine by me, as long as you don't mind having me under your feet. I tend to work quite long hours. And I'm eager to get moving on this profile right away.'

'I have the case information from Heidelberg and Leiden. And I've sent Bremen a request for their investigation reports, so we should have some material from them soon. I told them I believed their case might connect to one of our ongoing investigations. I think they were quite relieved at the idea of sharing the load. They're a small force, they don't have much experience with anything out of the ordinary.'

'Good. I need as much information as I can get.'

'I'm glad we tempted you out of retirement.'

He gave her a quick sideways glance. If she was sufficiently driven by her ambition to be operating outside the rules, he didn't think she would mind that he too was bringing his own agenda to this case. 'It was more than that. I knew Margarethe .Schilling.'

'Shit,' Petra said. 'I'm sorry. Carol didn't tell me.'

'Carol doesn't know. Did you get the chance to tell her I'm on my way?' he added, wanting to move away from the painful subject of Margarethe's death.

'I hope you don't mind, but I didn't tell her yet. She has her first encounter with Radecki this evening, and it's important she stays focused on that.'

'You're right. Hopefully we can link up tomorrow morning.'

'She'll be pleased to see you. She speaks very highly of you.'

Til be pleased to see her, too.'

'It's good for her that she has someone around to anchor her into her real life,' Petra said, swerving to avoid someone trying to cut in front of her. 'Asshole,' she muttered.

As long as I don't pull her out of character too much,' he said.

'I'm more concerned with her getting stuck in Caroline Jackson. Radecki's a charming bastard. That's hard to resist when you're feeling isolated. I think having you around will help her with that.'

'I hope so. And her insights will be valuable to me when it comes to drawing up my profile too. She's got a very unusual mind. She comes at things from odd tangents, sees things I don't always see.'

'When will you start work?'

'As soon as possible. If it's all right with you, I'll drop my bags off and maybe you can take me back to your place?'

'OK. I'll give you a key so you can come and go as you please. Don't worry about disturbing me. I'm hardly ever there and I sleep like the dead.' Petra turned off the Ku'damm into the quiet side street with the apartment complex. 'Here we are. Let me give you a hand.'

He followed Petra into the small concierge office next to the main entrance. She dealt with his registration, then led him through to the entrance hall. 'You're on the first floor. Carol is two floors above you, in 302. I'll wait here for you while you drop your things off.'

Tony nodded and pressed the call button for the lift. He'd burned his bridges this time. For too long, he'd been telling himself he could be a chameleon, taking on the colouring of his surroundings, fitting in with other lives because in truth he had no fixed points in his own life. But it was slowly dawning on him that he'd been lying to himself. There was a core that was uniquely Tony Hill. And the harder he tried to escape its clutches, the stronger its grip became. Forget blandness, forget conventionality. This was who he was: the hunter, sniffing the air for the delicate scent of his prey. He was back where he belonged, and it felt wonderful.

Carol was alive to the ironies of the opera she was watching from the back of the stalls at the Berlin Staatsoper. Janacek's Das Schlaue Fuchslein, The Cunning Little Vixen. The drama that might have distracted her if a different opera had been before her served only to hammer home the dangers of her mission. The first act unfolded before her; the gamekeeper's capture of the little vixen; her defence against the dog's sexual advances and the tormenting of the children; her tempting of the hens into her ambit; her slaughter of the hens and her escape before retribution could be visited on her.

I'm the cunning little vixen, Carol thought. She would allow Tadeusz Radecki to think he'd brought her into his camp at his command. She would resist any attempts to bait her into revealing her true nature; she suspected she would have to find a way to keep Radecki at arm's length. Then she would sneak into his henhouse, bring his chickens home to roost and get out from under before he could make her pay the price.

As the finale of the act approached, bringing its confrontation between the vixen and her human captors, Carol slipped I k °ut of her aisle seat and made her way out of the auditorium.

Her heart was racing, her stomach a knot of pain. In spite of the lightweight material of the midnight blue silk sheath she was wearing, she could feel sweat gathering hi the hollow of her back. Adrenaline coursed through her. Behind her, applause broke out. It was now or never, she told herself as she headed for the stairs that would take her up to the private boxes. Left-hand side, just as Petra had told her.

Petra had done her homework. According to her, Radecki had recently begun to visit the opera again. He was always alone hi his box, remaining confined during the intervals, avoiding mixing with any of his friends or contacts in the audience. He never went to the bars, instead preferring to sip champagne delivered ahead of the performance by one of the opera house staff. 'It's a dramatic place to stage your first encounter,' Petra had said. 'He always went to the opera with Katerina, so he will already be focused on her memory.' Tony had agreed that, psychologically, it would be a powerful moment that Carol could exploit. Taken so completely off his guard, Radecki would be more vulnerable to her appearance than in any business context.

Carol climbed the stairs, her steps soft on the heavy carpet. The doors from the auditorium were opening and the audience was spilling out, the air thick with chatter and laughter. She pushed her way up against the tide and carried on into a side corridor. Second on the right, Petra had told her. Carol stared at the door, saying a silent prayer to whatever guardian angel might be listening. She tucked her evening bag under her arm and tapped on the door.

There was no reply. She knocked again, this time harder. A pause, then suddenly the door was yanked open. Tadeusz Radecki stood framed in the doorway, his lean frame a good six inches taller than her. The photograph didn't do him justice, Carol thought irrelevantly. Even disfigured by a scowl, in the flesh his dramatic good looks were far more striking. His beautifully cut dinner jacket emphasized broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs, 'Was ist?' he demanded, the words spilling out before his eyes had taken her in fully.

Before she could say anything, his brain caught up with his eyes. Carol had never seen anyone physically recoil before, but there was no other word to describe his actions. Tadeusz reared up to his full height, simultaneously taking a step backwards. His eyes widened and his mouth spread in a thin line as he sucked his breath in.

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you,' she said in English, assembling puzzlement on her face.

A turbulent series of emotions crossed his face. She could imagine his thought processes. Was he seeing a ghost? No, ghosts didn't speak. Was she a hallucination? No, a hallucination wouldn't talk to him in English. But if she wasn't a ghost or a hallucination, who was she, standing here in the doorway of the opera box he'd shared with Katerina?

Carol took advantage of his confusion to step across the threshold. He took another step backwards, banging into one of the chairs, without even glancing to see what he'd hit His eyes were fixed on her face, his gaze perplexed, frown lines etched deep between his brows. 'Who are you?' he said, his voice a small croak compared to the resonant demand he'd made when he'd first opened the door. |

Carol kept the bewilderment in her face as she said, 'You are Tadeusz Radecki? I am in the right place?'

'I know who I am. What I want to know is who you are.' Radecki had recovered some of his composure and his words were delivered in a tone that was almost covered by a veneer of civilized manners.

'Caroline Jackson,' she said, extending a hand tentatively towards him.

He reached for her hand and took it gingerly, as if afraid it would disappear under his touch. His fingers were cool and dry, but the handshake was strangely limp, like that of a politician who has to press the flesh more often than is comfortable. He bowed slightly, the familiarity of instilled manners providing him with a space to gather himself. 'Tadeusz Radecki, as you rightly assumed.' He dropped her hand and moved slightly further from her, still frowning, but with caution overlaying the hard-edged features of his face. 'Now, perhaps, you would do me the courtesy of telling me what you are doing in my opera box?'

'I wanted to meet you. I'm sorry to butt in on you like this, but I needed to be sure of getting you on your own. Somewhere private. Do you mind if I sit down?' Carol wanted to be closer to the front of the box, where she could be seen from the tiers of seats in the circle. She knew Petra was out there somewhere, but she also wanted the added security of being visible. If she blew it from the start, she didn't want to be vulnerable to violence. Not that he looked the sort who would need to resort to that.

Tadeusz pulled out a chair for her, but didn't sit himself. Instead, he leaned against the parapet of the box, his back to the auditorium. Behind him, the low buzz of conversation swirled upwards from the stalls. He folded his arms across his chest and studied her as she settled into the velvet upholstery. 'So, Ms Jackson, we are private. Why are you here?'

'I know - that is, I used to know Colin Osborne.'

Radecki raised his eyebrows and his mouth quirked in a 'so what' expression. 'Should that mean something to me?' he asked.

Carol smiled broadly and enjoyed the spasm of reaction across Radecki's eyes that provoked. She had him, she knew. He was seeing Katerina in front of him and, in spite of his attempts to maintain a cool facade, he was unsettled. Which was precisely what she wanted. 'Considering how much business the two of you did together, I think he'd be very hurt that you've forgotten him so quickly.'

'You must be mistaken, Ms Jackson. I don't recall ever having done business with a Mr... Osborne, did you say?' He was aiming for genial indulgence, but he wasn't hitting the mark. There was a wariness in his posture that might have escaped many observers. But Carol had learned her lessons, from Tony and from others, and she recognized his unease. Now she was in the thick of it, she was starting to enjoy herself, feeling the power she had to control this situation.

'Look, I understand why you're being wary here. You know how Colin died, so of course it makes you edgy, having some strange woman walk through the door and start talking about him. But I know that you guys made a lot of money together, -- and that's what I want to talk to you about.' ^

He shook his head, a tight smile failing to loosen up his face. 'You must have the wrong person, Ms Jackson. The only business interest I have is a chain of stores that sell and rent videos. Now, your Mr Osborne may well have been one of our suppliers, but I employ staff to deal with people like that. You don't think I conduct the day-to-day purchase of stock _ myself, do you?' His mild air of condescension was well done; H he was recovering control of himself by the second. She couldn't afford to let that happen. Not quite yet.

Carol leaned back in her chair, bidding for the relaxed look. 'You're very good,' she said. 'No, really, you are,' she added as he tried a look of mild surprise. 'If I didn't know better, I'd fall for the "legitimate businessman" line. But I didn't come all the way to Berlin to talk about videos, Tadzio.'

The use of the diminutive form of his first name was another calculated move on Carol's part to wrong-foot him. That it had worked was obvious in the narrowing of his eyes. He was trying to get past his initial reaction, to size her up, but he couldn't escape the power of memory. 'Then you've wasted your time, Ms Jackson,' he said.

She shook her head. 'I don't think so. Look, it's obvious that you must be missing Colin badly. I've come to take up the slack.'

He shrugged. 'You're not making sense.' The five-minute bell rang, signalling the imminent end of the interval. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, I think you should be getting back to your seat.'

'The view from here is much better, you know. I think I'd rather stay.' Carol dropped her bag on the floor and crossed her legs, tilting her head and smiling at him. She could see the war of instinct and interest flickering in his uncertain eyes.

'I don't think so,' he said.

Carol gave an exasperated sigh. 'Look, Tadzio, stop pretending. You need me.'

He looked shocked. His mouth opened, but no words emerged. 'Colin was doing a good job for you,' she continued. 'But Colin's history. You need someone to take your illegals off your hands once they get to the UK. I can do that. Can we stop pussyfooting around and talk straight? Naturally you're nervous about discussing this with a total stranger, but, right now, I suspect I'm the only show in town when it comes to getting you off a very awkward hook. What do I need to do to prove to you that I'm trustworthy?'

'I still don't know what you're talking about.' There was a stubborn set to his jaw now. 'Illegals? What do you mean? We don't sell blue movies in my stores. We certainly don't import them into the UK.'

Carol smiled again, genuinely delighted that she was having to stretch for this. If it had been too easy at the start, she would have had to work harder later on. This way, she was getting into her stride, feeling her way through Caroline Jackson's skin to an argument that would open him up to her. 'Oh please,' she said, injecting a little steel into her voice. 'That line is getting rather tired. Look, I know what you and Colin had going for you. I can give you the addresses of his factories in Essex where the illegal immigrants ended up working for a pittance. I can tell you how many of your imports he handled in the last year. I know where Colin lived, who he drank with, who he was sleeping with - and, before you jump to any conclusions, it wasn't me. I know who killed him and I've got a fair idea why, and luckily it was nothing to do with you or your line of business.'

He started to say something, but she steamrollered over him. 'You'll get your turn. Tadzio, I'm not here to cause you problems, I'm here to help you solve them. If you'd rather keep your problems, if you like things to be difficult, fine. I'm out of here. But I don't think that's what you want. From what I hear, you're desperate to sort something out on my side of the water. So why don't we sit and listen to Act Two while you think about what I've said?'

He looked at her as if he couldn't take in what she'd said. 'Who sent you?' he asked.

Carol frowned. 'Nobody sent me. I don't work for anybody but myself. If we make a deal, I won't be working for you either. We'll be working together. You better be straight about that from the beginning.'

There was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. 'Perhaps you would like to stay for Act Two?' he said.

Carol patted the seat next to her and smiled pertly. 'I thought you'd never ask,' she said.

Petra seemed to embody the clich?of German efficiency, Tony thought as he surveyed the neatly labelled boxes on the living room floor. The three cases were arranged in order, although the amount of material varied enormously, with almost nothing in the third box.

Before he could even contemplate a profile of the killer, he first had to profile the victims. They might apparently be selected at random, but there was rhyme and reason behind their deaths. To the outside world, egged on by hysterical headlines, people who preyed on stranger after stranger were insane maniacs. But Tony knew otherwise. Organized serial killers operated to their own logic, men with a mission marching to a drum only they could hear. It was Tony's job to worm his way inside the victims' lives in the hope that he would then start to hear the faint reverberations of that beat. Only by uncovering that secret rhythm of the killer's progress could he start to understand why these crimes had meaning for the murderer. If he could put himself inside the killer's head and rearrange the world in terms that made sense to him, Tony could hope to reach out and grasp enough key elements of the killer's life to make it possible to track him down.

One of the first things he always did was to give the killer a nickname, to personalize him. It was one step along the road to giving him a human face, behind which there existed a psyche that functioned according to its own particular rules. 'You're killing people who are obsessed with the workings of the mind,' Tony said softly. 'This is about mind games. You're drowning them. Is that literal or metaphorical? You're scalping their pubic area, but leaving their genitals alone. You think this isn't about sex. But of course it is. You're just in denial about it. You think there's some higher purpose here. You're waging a war. You're leading the battle. You're Geronimo, aren't you?' He remembered a curiously apposite echo of a line from Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. 'Hieronimo's mad againe.'

'Geronimo it is,' Tony said. Now he had a name, he could build a dialogue between them. He could ease into his target's shoes, working out his steps and learning his gait. He could chart his progress and explore his fantasies. For this type of killing was always about fantasies. Geronimo, like so many others before him, could find no satisfaction in reality. For whatever reason, he had never learned to fit in. He had never matured into a rounded individual, however dysfunctional. He had become stuck at the point where the universe revolved around him and where fantasies could fulfil the desires that the real world refused to.

Tony understood that psychological state only too well. He had spent his own adult life feeling out of place in the world. He had lived with a sense of worthlessness that made it impossible to love, for loving carried implicit within it the conviction that one deserved to be loved in return. And he had never been able to believe that about himself. He had constructed his own series of masks, an empathetic sequence of facades that allowed him to blend in. Passing for human. If his circumstances had been different, he had always believed he might have ended up a predator himself, instead of a hunter. It was that awareness that underpinned all he did. It made him supremely good at unpicking the minds of the deranged and depraved.

It also made him supremely bad at forging relationships that penetrated beyond the superficial. Mostly, he had accepted that as a price worth paying for having in his grasp so useful and beneficial a skill. Carol Jordan was the only person who had ever made him feel that this was just another lie he told himself.

H He knew he didn't deserve her. But the harder he tried to

pull away from her, the stronger the tug towards her grew. One of these days he was going to have to take the chance of losing what he did best in the attempt to become what he had never understood how to be. Being a man instead of acting a part might alter him so profoundly that he could no longer navigate the labyrinth of messy minds.

But that was for another day. Tony gave himself a mental shake and set about reading the trail that Geronimo had left behind him. He began to plough through the contents of the crime files, taking notes as he went. The material from Heidelberg and Leiden was comprehensive, the boxes containing everything from witness statements to crime scene photographs and background reports on the victims. Luckily, the Dutch files had been translated into English for Petra's benefit, so he had no trouble reading them, apart from the odd awkward rendering. There was almost nothing from Bremen, simply because the investigation was still in the early stages and Petra's request hadn't yet borne much fruit.

Petra had made no attempt to engage him in conversation once he began, simply placing a fresh pot of coffee on the dining table where he was working. She poured herself a cup and said, Tm going out soon. I have to keep watch over Carol.'

He'd nodded absently, not really taking it in. He was too wrapped up in his study of the victims. It was after midnight when he finished his preliminary read through. He had a stack of paper with scribbled notes at his elbow. He would have to draw up a formal table relating all three cases to each other, but first he needed to know more about the academic specialities of the targets. He stood up and stretched, the muscles in his neck and back protesting at the sudden movement. Time for a change of scene.

He packed up his notes and let himself out of the flat. A short taxi ride brought him back to his apartment block. In the street, he glanced up at the third-floor windows. All was shrouded in darkness. If Carol was home, she was probably in bed. Their meeting could wait.

Upstairs, Tony ignored his still-packed bags and set up his laptop on the small writing table. He connected to the internet and navigated to the metasearch engine that he found most useful for tracking academic references. Within an hour, he had a reasonable overview of the research interests of Walter Neumann, Pieter de Groot and Margarethe Schilling. He scrolled back and forth through the material he'd downloaded, puzzled. He'd expected to find some glaring connection that would link the three dead psychologists. But their areas of specialism ranged from Margarethe's interest in religious belief systems, de Groot's studies of emotional abuse to Neumann's work on the psychological dynamics of sadomasochism.

He went through to the kitchen and brewed himself a fresh pot of coffee while he ran through what he'd learned and compared it against what experience had taught him. Every serial offender had a mental profile of his victims. Usually, the common factors that linked them were purely physical. Whether the victims were all males, all females or a mix of the two, it was almost always possible to draw conclusions about the type he would go for. The elderly female victims of a certain kind of rapist; the vulnerable waifs who appealed to the sort of killer who had been abused himself as a child; the beautiful blondes who had to be wiped out because they would never look twice at the woeful inadequate who preyed on them. Even though the details of the offences could vary widely, the victims were usually as much a physical signature as the actions the offender took to make the crime uniquely his.