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terms – there is nothing to be done.
    Still, for all that has happened I am still your Mutti. I love you, Rudi, and I would dearly love to see you.
    I know how you must feel. You think I’ve sided with him over you, but surely you cannot be utterly blind to the things he has done for you?
    I tell myself this is a phase you are going through, and that very soon you will come to your senses and stop worrying me so. For the answer to both our troubles is for you to return home, Rudi. Patch things up and come back to me.
    But no, I told myself I would not seek to blame you. This is not why I have written. In my brighter moments I feel as if this experience could be the making of you as a man. I do hope it will prove so.
    Forgive me, Rudi, for rambling. I hope you can see the truth of what I’m trying to say with my inadequate words. That I miss you and you are still my son. Although I know you to be somewhere in the city, you might as well be a stoker on a merchant ship in the far Pacific for how great the distance feels to me.
    So please do consent to meet me at the Mulatto Café on the Potsdamer Platz. I do not assume you will write again, certainly not with the risk, however slight, of your father intercepting any correspondence.
    Therefore I will make it as easy for you as I can. I will be at the café between 3pm and 5pm every afternoon this week. Please just come and see me. We need not speak to each other if you’d prefer. I can pass you a few Reichsmark – enough I hope to help you for a time.
    I must see you, my son, even just to keep my sanity. This is what you mean to me.
    I have forgiven you, Rudi. Please now do the same for me.
    With all the hope and love in my heart,
    Mutti X
    Chapter 9
    â€“–––––––
    T he house was grey stone covered in some kind of clinging plant Trautmann couldn’t be sure of in the wan pre-dawn light. It stood three storeys high beneath a red slate roof, and a small turret marked the entrance. It was also behind a locked gate.
    â€˜So what do we do now?’ Roth said.
    Trautmann pointed to the bell hanging by the side of the gate. Roth rang it, and the sound echoed down the dark street, quieting the shrill songbirds for a few seconds.
    Roth was about to ring again when a light came on in the porch at the base of the turret. A grey-haired man rushed out of the house towards the gate, buttoning his shirt as he went.
    When he saw Trautmann and Roth, he stopped.
    â€˜You’re not the baron,’ he said.
    Roth’s look to Trautmann said The baron? What have we got ourselves into now?
    But it was to be expected in this part of town. Trautmann flashed his ID and beckoned the man closer to the railings.
    â€˜We’re here to see the lady of the house,’ he said. Then, when the man continued to hesitate: ‘It’s about her missing son.’
    The man fumbled a key into the padlock and opened the gate, ushering the detectives inside and into the house.
    â€˜I’ll get the baroness,’ he said, leaving them in a study lined with bookshelves, a large desk facing into the room with its back to a large window with the drapes shut. A half-full glass of whisky or cognac sat on a low table between two sofas in front of the desk. That glass suggested the room hadn’t been abandoned long. The sofas suggested a woman’s touch, upholstered as they were in lemon and cream.
    â€˜Looks like she’s been waiting up,’ Roth said.
    â€˜Jump in if you think of something,’ Trautmann said, ‘but leave most of it to me. This needs the sensitive touch.’
    He’d meant it to be reassuring, but Roth tutted in response. Then the baroness entered the room and there was no time to dissipate the tension.
    She was dressed for bed but didn’t look like she’d been sleeping. Her face was still made up and her hair pinned back. If anything, she looked ready to attend a society ball if given