Guillaume - Personal welcome from the boss, even. Very charming.

Ehmke Security want some questions answered. You left East Germany thirteen years ago. They've gone very carefully through your career in the West.

Guillaume - Not a speech of welcome. A security vetting.

Ehmke Freelance photography . . . photocopy shop . . . party work - it all seems to check out. Lot of unanswered questions, though, about what you were doing in East Berlin before you left.

Guillaume - I wondered when it was coming. But out of the blue like that! Fright of my life. Somebody's obviously been telling tales. Two solid hours it goes on! Where? When? Who? In the end I have to lose my temper. - Herr Ehmke, escaping from East Germany means that you have to abandon everything you ever had in life. Your home, your friends, your family. For ever. And then you have to start life again from nothing, as nobody. You haven't had to do that, if I may say so. You can't begin to understand what it means. But now comes the bitterest part of all. You find you're going to spend the rest of your life in your new homeland under a black cloud of distrust and suspicion. Thirteen years I've been here! The last nine of them working night and day for this party! — Etcetera, etcetera. I could hear the choke in my voice. And in the end . . .

Ehmke Sorry. Have to put you through the hoops, though. I have actually been doing a bit of checking with your old boss in Frankfurt. Says he'd put his hand in the fire for you. So what are we wasting each other's time for, Günter? Let's get cracking!

Kretschmann (with Guillaume) Your initiation rite.

Guillaume And now of course he's my friend for life.

Kretschmann So there you are, in the Palais Schaumburg! What's it like? I'm blind, I'm deaf. You're my eyes, you're my ears. I've got to paint the picture for Mischa! You've got to paint it for me.

Guillaume Towers, casements. A nineteenth-century ironmaster's dream of the aristocratic life. Ghosts, of course. From the Kaiser's time, from the Nazis. From the Occupation. From Adenauer. And every now and then in my office I hear a tiny ticking in the roof timbers.

Kretschmann Deathwatch beetle. Symbolic, perhaps.

Guillaume And every now and then Willy hears faint sounds over his head. Footsteps. The scrape of a chair.

Kretschmann That's you?

Guillaume My office is directly above his.

Kretschmann His own weevil in the woodwork. Can you hear him?

Guillaume Not a sound.

Kretschmann Ear to the floor?

Guillaume Nothing. He works very quietly. And when I come downstairs . . .

Wilke (with Guillaume) Herr Guillaume.

Guillaume Günter! Please! Call me Günter!

Wilke Settled in up there, are you, Herr Guillaume?

Guillaume Snug as a bug, thank you, Reinhard. - Dr Reinhard Wilke. My immediate superior. The dragon guarding Willy's door. - Anything I can do for you, Reinhard? Filing? Copying? Watering the plants?