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on the door. His hands were trembling.
    ‘There’s someone standing outside!’
    Liebermann rose swiftly and approached the door.
    ‘For God’s sake, man,’ cried Erstweiler. ‘Don’t let him in!’
    The young doctor depressed the handle and pulled the door open, revealing a vacant corridor.
    ‘You see? Nothing to be frightened of.’
    Slumping back onto the rest bed, Erstweiler sighed: ‘I could have sworn …’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I thought I saw a shadow, through the glass.’
    Liebermann sat down again and picked up his notes. He immediately wrote: Thought of threatening Herr Kolinsky triggers hallucination. He wondered: Why would that happen? Struggling to understand the underlying psychodynamics, Liebermann turned over in his mind the facts of the case. Here was a man who desired his landlord’s wife but disowned such feelings. Perhaps the notion of coming between man and wife had become associated with divine retribution. Did the hallucination represent a punishment for failing to respect God’s sacrament of marriage? Liebermann glanced down at Erstweiler. The poor fellow certainly believed in God, but he was not devout or fanatical.
    ‘Herr Erstweiler?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Would you object to me speaking to Herr Polster?’
    Erstweiler was still looking uneasily at the panel of glass.
    ‘Do you think I made it all up?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then why do you want to speak to Herr Polster?’
    ‘I think it will be …’ Liebermann hesitated before selecting a suitably anodyne word ‘… instructive.’
    Rolling his head to the side, Erstweiler closed his eyes and whispered: ‘Do as you please, Herr doctor.’
    He was evidently too exhausted to continue the session.

9
    R HEINHARDT STRODE DOWN L ANGE Gasse, hopping off the pavement to allow a perambulator to pass and hopping back on again to avoid a carriage. He was humming the Andante con moto from Schubert’s B-flat Piano Trio, allowing his baritone voice to take on the expressive sonorities of a cello. The melody reflected his mood: subdued yet purposeful. In due course he came to his destination, a pair of tall wooden doors. He touched the peeling paintwork, pressed lightly, and entered a vaulted tunnel.
    The inspector stepped over a rusting bicycle frame and an obstacle course of discarded items: a box of coat hangers, numerous empty wine bottles, and the statue of an angel (with weather-worn features and broken wings) lying on its side.
    Beyond the tunnel was a narrow path which ran between two rows of identical terraced cottages. They had plain whitewashed exteriors and flat roofs. Someone, somewhere, was playing a Chopin prelude on an out-of-tune piano; however, Rheinhardt was impressed by the technical proficiency of the pianist. Raising his eyes, the inspector saw that he had entered a cul-de-sac. The path was truncated by a brick wall on which two large urns were precariously balanced. Behind the wall he could see the tops of trees and, some distance beyond these, the fenestrated rear of a high residential block.
    Rheinhardt came to an open door and called out: ‘Hello?’
    A scruffy-looking young man appeared. He wasn’t wearing a collar and his untucked shirt hung over a pair of dirty corduroy trousers.
    ‘Yes?’ His accent was almost aristocratic.
    ‘I’m looking for Herr Rainmayr.’
    ‘Ludo Rainmayr? Last cottage on the right; be that as it may, I feel obliged to inform you that he is presently engaged by his muse and he can’t abide interruptions. It puts him in a foul temper. I assume you have come to settle a debt?’ Rheinhardt did not answer. ‘Well, if so,’ the young man continued, ‘you will — I am sorry to say — be disappointed. Ludo hasn’t a heller left. He spent all his money last night. We went to see a troupe of comedy acrobats — The Dorfmeisters — at Ronachers.’
    Rheinhardt was confident that he was speaking to an impoverished actor.
    ‘Thank you for your assistance,’ he said, raising his hat. ‘Please