When he tried to think back over recent events,to work out what had cued this transformation, hismemory played tricks. He had been called to meet withBallard's superior; that he remembered. Whether he hadgone to the meeting, he did not. The night was a blank.

Ballard would know how things stood, he reasoned.He had liked and trusted the Englishman from thebeginning, sensing that despite the many differencesbetween them they were more alike than not. If he lethis instinct lead, he would find Ballard, of that he wascertain. No doubt the Englishman would be surprised tosee him; even angered at first. But when he told Ballardof this new-found happiness surely his trespasses wouldbe forgiven?

Ballard dined late, and drank until later still in TheRing, a small transvestite bar which he had beenfirst taken to by Odell almost two decades ago.No doubt his guide's intention had been to provehis sophistication by showing his raw colleague thedecadence of Berlin, but Ballard, though he never feltany sexual frisson in the company of The Ring's clientele,had immediately felt at home here. His neutrality wasrespected; no attempts were made to solicit him. Hewas simply left to drink and watch the passing paradeof genders.

Coming here tonight raised the ghost of Odell, whosename would now be scrubbed from conversationbecause of his involvement with the Mironenko affair.Ballard had seen this process at work before. Historydid not forgive failure, unless it was so profound as toachieve a kind of grandeur. For the Odells of the world- ambitious men who had found themselves throughlittle fault of their own in a cul-de-sac from which allretreat was barred - for such men there would be nofine words spoken nor medals struck. There would onlybe oblivion.

It made him melancholy to think of this, and hedrank heavily to keep his thoughts mellow, but when- at two in the morning - he stepped out on to thestreet his depression was only marginally dulled. Thegood burghers of Berlin were well a-bed; tomorrow wasanother working day. Only the sound of traffic from theKurfurstendamm offered sign of life somewhere near.He made his way towards it, his thoughts fleecy.

Behind him, laughter. A young man - glamorouslydressed as a starlet - tottered along the pavement armin arm with his unsmiling escort. Ballard recognisedthe transvestite as a regular at the bar; the client, tojudge by his sober suit, was an out-of-towner slakinghis thirst for boys dressed as girls behind his wife's back.Ballard picked up his pace. The young man's laughter,its musicality patently forced, set his teeth on edge.

He heard somebody running nearby; caught a shadowmoving out of the corner of his eye. His watch-dog, mostlikely. Though alcohol had blurred his instincts, he feltsome anxiety surface, the root of which he couldn't fix.He walked on. Featherlight tremors ran in his scalp.

A few yards on, he realised that the laughter fromthe street behind him had ceased. He glanced overhis shoulder, half-expecting to see the boy and hiscustomer embracing. But both had disappeared; slippedoff down one of the alleyways, no doubt, to concludetheir contract in darkness. Somewhere near, a dog hadbegun to bark wildly. Ballard turned round to look backthe way he'd come, daring the deserted street to displayits secrets to him. Whatever was arousing the buzz in hishead and the itch on his palms, it was no commonplaceanxiety. There was something wrong with the street,despite its show of innocence; it hid terrors.

The bright lights of the Kurfurstendamm were nomore than three minutes' walk away, but he didn't wantto turn his back on this mystery and take refuge there.Instead he proceeded to walk back the way he'd come,slowly. The dog had now ceased its alarm, and settledinto silence; he had only his footsteps for company.

He reached the corner of the first alleyway and peereddown it. No light burned at window or doorway. Hecould sense no living presence in the gloom. He crossedover the alley and walked on to the next. A luxuriousstench had crept into the air, which became more lavishyet as he approached the corner. As he breathed it in thebuzz in his head deepened to a threat of thunder.

A single light flickered in the throat of the alley, ameagre wash from an upper window. By it, he sawthe body of the out-of-towner, lying sprawled on theground. He had been so traumatically mutilated itseemed an attempt might have been made to turn himinside out. From the spilled innards, that ripe smell rosein all its complexity.

Ballard had seen violent death before, and thoughthimself indifferent to the spectacle. But something herein the alley threw his calm into disarray. He felt his limbsbegin to shake. And then, from beyond the throw oflight, the boy spoke.

'In God's name ...' he said. His voice had lostall pretension to femininity; it was a murmur ofundisguised terror.

Ballard took a step down the alley. Neither theboy, nor the reason for his whispered prayer, becamevisible until he had advanced ten yards. The boy washalf-slumped against the wall amongst the refuse. Hissequins and taffeta had been ripped from him; the bodywas pale and sexless. He seemed not to notice Ballard:his eyes were fixed on the deepest shadows.

The shaking in Ballard's limbs worsened as hefollowed the boy's gaze; it was all he could do to preventhis teeth from chattering. Nevertheless he continued hisadvance, not for the boy's sake (heroism had little merit,he'd always been taught) but because he was curious,more than curious, eager, to see what manner of manwas capable of such casual violence. To look into theeyes of such ferocity seemed at that moment the mostimportant thing in all the world.

Now the boy saw him, and muttered a pitiful appeal,but Ballard scarcely heard it. He felt other eyes uponhim, and their touch was like a blow. The din in his headtook on a sickening rhythm, like the sound of helicopterrotors. In mere seconds it mounted to a blinding roar.

Ballard pressed his hands to his eyes, and stumbledback against the wall, dimly aware that the killer wasmoving out of hiding (refuse was overturned) andmaking his escape. He felt something brush againsthim, and opened his eyes in time to glimpse theman slipping away down the passageway. He seemedsomehow misshapen; his back crooked, his head toolarge. Ballard loosed a shout after him, but the berserkerran on, pausing only to look down at the body beforeracing towards the street.

Ballard heaved himself off the wall and stood upright.The noise in his head was diminishing somewhat; theattendant giddiness was passing.

Behind him, the boy had begun sobbing. 'Did yousee?' he said. 'Did you see?

'Who was it? Somebody you knew?'

The boy stared at Ballard like a frightened doe, hismascaraed eyes huge.

'Somebody ...?' he said.

Ballard was about to repeat the question when therecame a shriek of brakes, swiftly followed by the sound ofthe impact. Leaving the boy to pull his tattered trousseauabout him, Ballard went back into the street. Voiceswere raised nearby; he hurried to their source. A largecar was straddling the pavement, its headlights blazing.The driver was being helped from his seat, while hispassengers - party-goers to judge by their dress anddrink-flushed faces - stood and debated furiously as tohow the accident had happened. One of the women wastalking about an animal in the road, but another of thepassengers corrected her. The body that lay in the gutterwhere it had been thrown was not that of an animal.

Ballard had seen little of the killer in the alleyway buthe knew instinctively that this was he. There was no signof the malformation he thought he'd glimpsed, however;just a man dressed in a suit that had seen better days,lying face down in a patch of blood. The police hadalready arrived, and an officer shouted to him to standaway from the body, but Ballard ignored the instructionand went to steal a look at the dead man's face. Therewas nothing there of the ferocity he had hoped so muchto see. But there was much he recognised nevertheless.