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colouring a little. ‘I hope you don’t think I have anything against the Jews.’
    â€˜Of course not,’ I said. But of course that is what everybody says. Even Hitler.
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    â€˜Good God,’ I said, when the U-Boat’s mother had left my office. ‘That’s what a satisfied customer looks like.’ The thought depressed me so much that I decided to get out for a while.
    At Loeser & Wolff I bought a packet of Murattis, after which I cashed Six’s cheque. I paid half of it into my own account; and I treated myself to an expensive silk dressing-gown at Wertheim’s just for being lucky enough to land as sweet an earner as Six.
    Then I walked south-west, past the railway station from which a train now rumbled forth heading towards the Jannowitz Bridge, to the corner of Königstrasse where I had left my car.
    Lichterfelde-Ost is a prosperous residential district in south-west Berlin much favoured by senior civil servants and members of the armed forces. Ordinarily it would have been way out of a young couple’s price league, but then most young couples don’t have a multi-millionaire like Hermann Six for a father.
    Ferdinandstrasse ran south from the railway line. There was a policeman, a young Anwärter in the Orpo, standing guard outside Number 16, which was missing most of the roof and all of its windows. The bungalow’s blackened timbers and brickwork told the story eloquently enough. I parked the Hanomag and walked up to the garden gate, where I flipped out my identification for the young bull, a spotty-looking youth of about twenty. He looked at it carefully, naively, and said redundantly: ‘A private investigator, eh?’
    â€˜S’right. I’ve been retained by the insurance company to investigate the fire.’ I lit a cigarette and watched the match suggestively as it burned towards my fingertips. He nodded, but his face appeared troubled. It cleared all of a sudden as he recognized me.
    â€˜Hey, didn’t you used to be in Kripo up at the Alex?’ I nodded, my nostrils trailing smoke like a factory chimney. ‘Yes, I thought I recognized the name - Bernhard Gunther. You caught Gormann, the Strangler, didn’t you? I remember reading about it in the newspapers. You were famous.’ I shrugged modestly. But he was right. When I caught Gormann I was famous for a while. I was a good bull in those days.
    The young Anwärter took off his shako and scratched the top of his squarish head. ‘Well, well,’ he said; and then: ‘I’m going to join Kripo. That is, if they’ll have me.’
    â€˜You seem a bright enough fellow. You should do all right.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ he said. ‘Hey, how about a tip?’
    â€˜Try Scharhorn in the three o’clock at the Hoppegarten.’ I shrugged. ‘Hell, I don’t know. What’s your name, young fellow?’
    â€˜Eckhart,’ he said. ‘Wilhelm Eckhart.’
    â€˜So, Wilhelm, tell me about the fire. First of all, who’s the pathologist on the case?’
    â€˜Some fellow from the Alex. I think he was called Upmann or Illmann.’
    â€˜An old man with a small chin-beard and rimless glasses?’ He nodded. ‘That’s Illmann. When was he here?’
    â€˜Day before yesterday. Him and Kriminalkommissar Jost.’
    â€˜Jost? It’s not like him to get his flippers dirty. I’d have thought it would take more than just the murder of a millionaire’s daughter to get him off his fat arse.’ I threw my cigarette away, in the opposite direction from the gutted house: there didn’t seem any point in tempting fate.
    â€˜I heard it was arson,’ I said. ‘Is that true, Wilhelm?’
    â€˜Just smell the air,’ he said.
    I inhaled deeply, and shook my head.
    â€˜Don’t you smell the petrol?’
    â€˜No. Berlin always smells like this.’
    â€˜Maybe I’ve just been standing here a