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opportunity to kill the girl, get cleaned up and claim that you’ve just arrived and found the body.’
    ‘Okay, okay … I went down to see a guy I know in the Hafen … bought some stuff …’
    ‘From whom?’
    ‘You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding …’
    Fabel spun a scene-of-crime photograph across the table. The scene had been captured in full colour, so vivid that it looked unreal.
    ‘This is no joke.’
    Klugmann froze, his face white. Memories were obviously flooding back. ‘She was a friend. That’s all.’
    Werner sighed. Klugmann ignored him and looked directly at Fabel.
    ‘And you know I didn’t kill her, Herr Fabel …’ The intensity faded from his eyes and his posture. ‘Anyway, I got a taxi from the club down to the Hafen. The taxi guy waited for me while I had my meet and then took me up to the apartment. He dropped me off there about two-thirty. He can tell you all my movements from leaving the club to arriving at the flat. Check with the taxi firm.’
    ‘We’re already checking.’
    Fabel closed the file and stood up. It seemed clear that Klugmann wasn’t the killer; they had no solid grounds for detaining him, even as a material witness. But the interview had unsettled Fabel. Klugmann seemed everything he was supposed to be, but Fabel had had the feeling throughout that he had been looking at a map upside down: all the recognised landmarks were there, but they disoriented rather than guided. With both files under his arm, Fabel walked towards the door and spoke without looking back at Klugmann. ‘We’ll get forensics to examine you and your clothing anyway.’
     
    Everything about Maria Klee was brisk and sharp, from her clipped Hanover accent to her short, styled blonde hair. When Fabel emerged from the interview room she was standing in the corridor waiting for him. She had a sheet of paper in her hand.
    ‘How did it go?’ she asked briskly.
    Fabel was about to answer when a uniformed SchuPo arrived to escort Klugmann to forensics. Klugmann’s and Maria’s eyes met for a moment; Klugmann’s eyes seemed blank, as if Maria weren’t there, while Maria frowned, as if trying to work something out.
    ‘You know him?’ asked Fabel when Klugmann and his escort were out of earshot.
    ‘I don’t know … I thought I recognised him, but I couldn’t say where I’ve seen him before …’
    ‘Well, it is possible. He is ex-Polizei Hamburg.’
    Maria shrugged again, this time as if she were shaking off an irritating inconsequence. ‘How did you get on with him anyway?’
    ‘He’s obviously not our guy, but he’s dirty. Everything is just wrong about him. There’s something he’s not telling us. In fact, there’s a lot he’s not telling us. How did you get on?’
    ‘I talked to the manager of the Tanzbar, Arno Hoffknecht. He confirms that Klugmann was there working until after one-thirty.’
    ‘Could Hoffknecht be covering for him?’
    ‘Well, you have to see this guy to believe him. He is as sleazy as they come. Made my flesh crawl.’ Maria mimed a shudder. ‘But no, he’s not covering for him. Too many other people saw Klugmann throughout his shift. Davidwache KriPo have also checked out Klugmann’s claim that he went everywhere in the same taxi …’
    ‘He just told us the same story.’
    ‘Anyway, the driver confirms that he picked up Klugmann at the club at one-forty-five, took him to a Kneipe in the Hafen – Klugmann told him to wait – then he dropped him at the apartment about half past two.’
    ‘Okay. Anything else?’
    ‘Yes, I’m afraid there is,’ said Maria, and handed Fabel the print-out of the e-mail she had been holding in her hand.
     
    Wednesday 4 June, 10.00 a.m. Polizeipräsidium, Hamburg.
    Fabel read it out loud again, then put the page back down on the table and walked over to the window. The briefing room was on the third floor of the Polizeipräsidium. The traffic below pulsed with the changing of the traffic lights: the reassuring rhythm of