The blade made a strange hissing sound as it was slowly withdrawn, and he used a well-practised combination of both hands to wipe it clean, before replacing it in its sheath. When this was done, he placed the body on the carpet next to the unmade bed and briefly admired his handiwork. Because she'd died so quickly, there was very little blood, and she looked remarkably peaceful lying there with her eyes closed. It was the quietest he'd seen her. In life, she'd been quite a talker.

Leaning down, he tried to push her under the bed, but there wasn't enough of a gap between the bottom of the frame and the floor, so he squeezed her in as far as she would go, then covered the rest of the body with one end of the duvet cover. It was only a tidying-up gesture. Concealing the body would do nothing to mask the smell that would soon be coming from it, but he wasn't overly concerned about that. He doubted if she'd be discovered for a while. She lived alone in her tiny ground-floor flat, and had few friends in the city, which had always been one of her complaints about it. He knew she spoke to her mother back home once a week but that was always on a Sunday, so it would be another six days before the mother had a reason to worry about her daughter, and several days more, at least, before anyone did anything about it.

No one had ever seen him with her. Their few clandestine meetings had always been in this flat. As far as he knew, she hadn't told anyone about him either, although even if she had it would make no difference. He'd given her a false name and background, one of four different identities he periodically used in order always to keep one step ahead of the authorities. His DNA would be in this room, of course, but then so would the DNA of those few friends the girl had, and since they were mainly illegals, it would be difficult to trace them.