He flattened his burger with the palm of his hand, creating a rich goo of processed vegetables squished against processed meat. “I get three hundred and fifty euros an hour to tell people stuff they could have got off the internet. I’m like–of course I’m good, I know what I’m talking about–but these guys, these money shits, they just want everything, you know? They want big returns on investment for no risk and I say you gotta spread your bets.”

There must have been something incredulous in my stare, for he added, “Hey–you looking for financial advice?”

“I’m really not.”

“Nah. You’re looking for computing shit, aren’t you? The digit al age, twenty-first century, pow!” Before I could answer, he scooped up his burger and took a bite worthy of a shark.

I waited for the worst to pass, then: “I need three things. I need access to a laptop; I need access to a phone; and I’m going to need to access some password-protected machines, I think.”

“You think?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“OK. Can’t we just do it remotely, hello the global age?”

“I don’t yet know where these computers are.”

“Right…”

“I’m sure I’ll spot them when I find them.”

“OK…”

“Can you just knock me up a USB stick or something?”

He stared at me in expert horror. “You’ve just got no clue, have you?”

Without consciously doing it, I realised I was batting my eyes. “That is why I came to an expert.”

Chapter 47

The sun was setting by the time I left Schwarb, Alice Mair’s fingers turning daisy-white in the cold. I had drunk tea as he tampered with laptop, telephone; played with software; tutted and cursed and performed the technological equivalent of summoning sagely demons and learned ghosts to help him in his enterprise.

After he had unlocked the laptop, he set about unlocking the mobile phone.

I sat with Alice’s computer on my knees and flicked through email, news sites and a small but respectable collection of strategy games.

Her email was personal, not professional.

A sister in Salzburg, forwarding a picture of her latest scan. An arrow drawn across the grainy image pointed to a bundle of white that might, in time, come to have a head, a pair of legs and a thumb it sucked in its mother’s womb.

A college reunion; ten years since we graduated, can you believe it? No? Have a drink with us and maybe you won’t have to.

A series of requests, notifications–this person on that network is looking to make a friend. This stranger wants to share a file. This person likes your online dating profile. You’ve used a false name and called yourself an account manager, but the picture you posted of yourself, Alice Mair, is beautiful. You wear a blue dress and seem surprised at your own femininity, delighted at how silly and free you feel, a moment captured by the lens.

The history of Alice’s life is on this computer, ready to be read.

The story of her job, however, is not.

Only one file, still lingering in the “Recent Downloads” folder. She hasn’t yet wiped it, watched it from a temporary file and then forgot it was there.

A video.

A CCTV camera catching a moment, a woman in a hood and miniskirt. She’s taken off her high-heeled shoes and carries them by their straps between the spread fingers of her left hand. She’s on a path by a river, maybe a canal; the water is still and the bank is low, I can’t tell from this angle. She walks quickly, then slowly, seems to feel the gaze of the CCTV camera on her, looks up, looks round, smiles at what she sees, smiles into the camera. Her hands are smudged with something dark. She kneels down before the screen and runs her hand across the tarmacked path. Sometimes she stops, running her fingers across her palms, around her wrists. She’s writing. Ink is darker than that, paint is thicker, but the liquid staining her skin, darkening her tights, smeared across her face, is suitable for the challenge. It isn’t her blood, which is why she stops occasionally to scrape a little bit more on to her finger tips from the streaks across her flesh.

When she stands, the words she has written are just about visible.

Do you like what you see?

Josephine Cebula’s eyes linger on the camera, asking the question that is written at her feet.

She walks away.

I check the date/time stamp on the video.

Schwarb checks it as well, looking for a forgery beneath the image.

I look for associated files, find a list of names.

Tortsen Ulk, Magda Müller, James Richter and Elsbet Horn.

Murdered in Frankfurt. Their deaths were not clean; it was not assassination or burglary gone astray which killed them. They suffered before they died, and their killer enjoyed the experience.

Coyle blamed Josephine, but I had studied her life and knew she had not done it.

A face frozen on the screen, staring up at the camera.

Do you like what you see?

I closed the laptop, told Schwarb to keep it hidden.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

I left his office as the sun went down. In my pocket was a USB stick, its rubber sheath cut into the shape of a cheerfully waving penguin.

I went to a department store at the eastern end of Kurfürstendamm. When the Wall fell, East Berliners had flocked to these hallowed walls of commerce, their priorities clear: smelly soap and soft socks. I bought a pair of trousers, pulling them over the Lycra jogging pants. It was all very well looking like you could run the marathon, but how useful pockets were.

I bought two cheap mobile phones with a few euros’ credit in each and headed east, towards Potsdamer Platz. At the old Checkpoint Charlie a museum had been built to the great Mauer which had eaten its victims whole, but at Potsdamer Platz it was hard to believe that the concrete monster had ever stood at all. Reflective glass was lit up by brilliant splashes of light; LED screens ran constant shimmering shapes round the curves of the overhanging buildings; the sound of voices fought against the clatter of feet beneath the shop windows and the calls of waiters as they pushed their restaurant doors wide to offer sushi, pad thai, prawn crackers, mulled wine, venison stew, hot dumplings and vodka. Beneath the origami-steel roof of the Sony Centre your only purpose was to buy, spend and make merry, as brightly and as lavishly as you possibly could.

With the winter coming on, the authorities had built not only an ice rink but a small ski slope and “Winter Wonderland”, where children screamed and nervous couples worried about the safety of their ankles. I bought myself a ticket to the ice rink, and was caught short when asked what size boots I wanted.

“Do you… want to check?” asked the woman behind the counter when my silence grew too long.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “I can never remember.”

A pair of ice skates later, I sat on a hard wooden bench at the side of the rink while music played and lights spun in magenta blobs across the ice. Hundreds were already skating, thick gloves pulled up high. None were professionals; professionals would not have been seen dead at Potsdamer Platz. Teenagers clung to each other for support and whooped when one fell, only for the collapse of one to topple a neighbour, who toppled the next, until with a swosh of metal on ice the whole pack went tumbling, feet up, bums down, faces wet with laughter. Around the edge of the rink those who had always known they didn’t want to skate, had never wanted to skate, didn’t want to skate now, clung to the wall, shuffling one foot over another while their sleeker, more prepared companions whooshed up and down.

I did up the last knot on my boots, patted my pockets to check that all I needed was there and turned on Alice’s phone.