Dmitri sat with his legs manacled, facing an empty chair through a wall of steel bars. He had been brought in strait-jacket and cuffs from his secure cell by six silent warders who had manoeuvred him expertly from one set of restraints to another and left him alone again without a word of explanation. He stared straight ahead, expressionless, the yellow prison fatigues stretched taut on his broad frame.

Katya had been watching him through the two-way mirror for many minutes before she called for the cell to be opened. His wild hair and beard, broad forehead and deep-set eyes were familiar from the many news stories about Waldenstein’s most prolific serial killer and cannibal, but few women would ever dare come so close to him. The popular press ghoulishly reported that he had some kind of hypnotic power or evil eye. Other commentators were frankly mystified at his evident ability to seduce women into colluding with their own murders. Little was known of his victims, but there was no evidence of abduction and the whole country shivered deliciously at the thought that they had gone willingly to their deaths. Katya’s director had decided that their most important task was to learn more about the victims and that the most promising line of investigation would be to question the cannibal himself. Secretly, Katya had been desperate for the job; there was something about these extremes of masochism which she found utterly compelling.

Dmitri looked up and smiled as an attractive, dark-haired woman of about forty entered the room, sat in the empty chair facing him through the bars and crossed her shapely legs.

“My name is Katya and I would like to ask you some questions” she said, clutching her clipboard to her chest. Her voice was steady and her gaze impassive.

“It will be a pleasure” he said, pleasantly.

“You understand that I cannot bargain with you?” she asked, carefully. “Your cooperation will be noted on your records, of course”.

“Of course,” he nodded.

“We have found these images” she began to flip through a folder of prints, holding each one up for him to see. There were pictures of headless women on slabs, human thighs and other body parts roasted and dressed for the table, corpses all covered with cuts and drenched with blood. Katya paused, and their eyes met. “These stigmata…” she swallowed, momentarily off balance, “…how did they happen?” She held up the picture. A beautiful, doll-like woman lay spread-eagled on a floor of stone flags. Long black hair tumbled in waves around her cruelly lacerated corpse and she bore jagged, crimson holes in her hands, feet and chest.

“Stigmata?” asked Dmitri, arching an eyebrow. “Those are real nail and spear wounds”. He pretended not to notice as Katya shifted uncomfortably. “The photograph is of a woman named Alexandra, Grigori’s wife. We crucified her last year; I decided that I had drawn all the pleasure I could from prolonging her agony”. He smiled, his words flowing easily and compellingly. “She had reached such a peak of anticipation and arousal that she could be denied no longer. And I wanted her”. He told the tale.

Four of them had left the back door of the old convent that day, Dmitri told her; they cast dark shadows in the bright, summer sunshine. Alexandra was stark naked save for a length of barbed wire wrapped tightly around her head; Dmitri, Grigori and Leon wore simple smocks belted at the waist. Each carried a knotted scourge and Dmitri also held an African assegai – a foot of gleaming steel at the end of a shaft of smooth, dark oak. He gestured with it towards the path and strode off towards the hilltop without a backward glance. Alexandra promptly dropped to her hands and knees and crawled after him, her tight arse rolling invitingly as she struggled to keep pace.