Holter nodded. “We’ll have Hoffmann’s in Gneisenaustrasse send over a couple for you to try on. Until then, perhaps you’d like to slip off your jacket and I’ll take your measurements.” He glanced at a little calendar on the wall. “It’s always a hurry with General Heydrich.”

“Yes, it’s never a good idea to disagree with him.” I said, slipping off my jacket. “I do know that feeling. Where Heydrich is concerned, your black armband could be catching.”

It was after I’d been measured and I was on my way out of the door that I bumped into Elisabeth Gehler, who was coming into the tailor’s shop with a uniform box under her arm. I hadn’t seen her very much since that night in 1931 when she’d taken offense at my turning up at her apartment and asking for Mielke’s address. But she greeted me warmly, as if all that was forgotten now, and agreed to come and meet me for a coffee after she had delivered the uniform to Herr Holter.

I waited around the corner at Miericke, on Ranke Strasse, where the chocolate cake was still the best in Berlin.

When she arrived, she told me that since the beginning of the war she’d had little or no time for making dresses; everyone wanted her for tailoring uniforms.

“This war is over before it even got started,” I told her. “You’ll be back to dressmaking in no time at all.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said. “Even so, I suppose that’s why you were there, at Holter’s. To get yourself a uniform.”

“Yes. I have a police job to do in Paris next week.”

“Paris.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “What I wouldn’t give to be going to Paris.”

“You know, I was just thinking of you about an hour ago.”

She pulled a face. “I don’t believe you.”

“Honestly, it’s true. I was.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. I hardly wanted to tell her that I was being sent to Paris to hunt down her old friend Erich Mielke and that this was the reason she was in my mind again.

“Oh, I was just thinking that it would be nice to see you again, Elisabeth. Perhaps when I get back from Paris we could see a movie together.”

“I thought you said you were going to Paris next week.”

“I am.”

“Then what’s wrong with seeing a movie this week?”

“If it comes to that,” I said, “what’s wrong with tonight?”

She nodded. “Pick me up at six,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek.

We were on our way out of the coffee shop when she said, “I nearly forgot. I’m living somewhere else now.”

“No wonder I couldn’t find you.”

“As if you tried. Motzstrasse. Number twenty-eight. First floor. My name is on the bell.”