As Max made a sound that his friend took to mean agreement, Fritz turned his attention to Lotti.

It would have been hard for him not to. She had shrugged off her coat to reveal her revue costume. A bra now brought a shred of decency to the tie-fastened sequinned bolero, though did little to hide the voluptuousness of her breasts, and a black wrap-around satin skirt now revealed the satin shorts only when she crossed her legs—which she did with studied slowness, out of sheer force of habit.

Fritz raised his foaming glass of beer towards her, eyeing her leeringly.

‘I don’t think you’ve met my girlfriend before, have you, Fritz?’ Max draped an arm proprietorially around her shoulders. ‘Lotti, Fritz Schenck. Fritz, Lotti Lennartz. And now have we to move away from the bar and find a quiet corner somewhere? I want some Berlin gossip to take back to Munich.’

Lotti kept her eyes firmly on the glass in her hand. If he wanted her to act the part of his girlfriend, that was fine by her. It meant there would be no lecherous advances by Fritz, which was presumably why the lie had been told. Keeping surprise out of her eyes over his remark about Munich was a little more difficult. Munich was a city she’d never heard Max mention, and though the bank he worked for in London gave him generous holiday time, she couldn’t imagine his leave would be long enough for him to be spending time in Munich as well as in Berlin.

‘And are you also from Munich?’ Fritz asked, managing to brush against her breasts as they walked over to a booth at the rear of the club.

She glanced across at Max, read his eyes and, certain he had no need for a lie, said, ‘No. I’m a Berliner.’

‘And so life is more interesting for her than for me,’ Max said as they seated themselves on the shabby red banquettes of a corner booth. ‘All Communist Party organizations have been smashed to smithereens in Munich, but it seems that here, in Berlin, there is still work to do.’

‘Bollocks!’ Fritz gave a roar of laughter. ‘Göring runs things in Berlin and he runs them well. In Berlin, communists are with anyone else who is troublesome—in Dachau.’

Most people in the club were now giving their attention to the hatbox-sized stage where a blonde stripper was going through her routine, a bored expression on her face.

‘I thought Dachau was for political prisoners?’ Max took a deep drink of his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It was an uncouth gesture Lotti had never seen him make before.

‘Dachau is for anyone.’ Fritz was grinning broadly, showing a gold molar. ‘It is for Jews, for the bourgeoisie, for anyone who is proving themselves a nuisance.’ He began laughing again. ‘And you, who live on its doorstep, have to come to Berlin to find that out!’

The girl on the stage had now divested herself of everything but a G-string and silver nipple tassels.