Pathetic, he knew.

He sat down at the desk once again, his back to al the photographs and postcards so that he didn't have to look at them.

Maybe he should go and shower. Head down to the communal bathroom at the end of the corridor in the hope that there was some hot water left. Did he even have any soap? Christ, had he even used soap since he arrived in Berlin?

He drank some more wine.

When the bottle was empty, he picked up the pictures of the dead couple from Rome. He placed them in front of him on the desk and put his 9mil imeter Glock 26 beside them, just as he always did.

The kil ers had sent two pictures of the murder in Rome: one image of the two naked victims and a close-up of two of their hands.

The woman's left and the man's right.

He picked up the picture of the hands and traced the shape of the woman's graceful hand with his finger, smiling as it reached the birthmark at the base of her thumb.

She played the piano, was an expert on Franz Liszt.

He breathed out deeply, let go of the picture, and picked up his gun.

He ran the palm of his hand over the dul plastic of the grip and put the muzzle in his mouth. It tasted of powder and metal.

He closed his eyes and the room slid gently to the left, the result of far too much Riesling.

No, Jacob thought. Not yet. I'm not done here yet.

Chapter 4

Friday, June 11

Stockholm, Sweden

The postcard lay next to a harmless invitation to a boules tournament – the newsroom against a rival newsroom – and another invitation to a wine-tasting evening with the culture crowd.

Dessie Larsson groaned out loud and tossed the cards for the pointless social events into the recycling bin. If people paid more attention to their work instead of playing with bal s and scratching one another's back, maybe this newspaper would have a future.