I shrugged. “It hardly seemed relevant at the time. I almost forgot that Elisabeth even knew Erich. Not least because she’d always kept it a secret from him that we were friends. Erich didn’t like cops much, to put it mildly. I started seeing her again in the winter of 1946, when I came back from the Russian POW camp. I lived with Elisabeth for a short while until I managed to fin d my wife again in Berlin. But I was always very fond of her, and she of me. And recently, when I was in Paris, I got to thinking of her again and wondering if she was okay. I suppose you might say I began to entertain romantic thoughts about her. Like I said, there’s no one else in Berlin I know. So I was resolved to look her up as soon as possible and see if she and I couldn’t make another go of it.”

“And how did that go?”

“It went well. She’s not married. She was involved with some American soldier. More than one, I think. Anyway, both men were married, and so they went back to their wives in the States, leaving her, middle-aged and scared about the future.”

I poured a glass of schnapps and sipped it while the Chief watched me closely, as if weighing my story in each hand, trying to judge how much or how little he believed.

“She was at the same address as she’d been in 1946?”

“Yes.”

“We can always ask the French, you know. Her address.”

“Go ahead.”

“They might reasonably assume that’s where you’ve gone,” he said. “They might even make life difficult for her. Have you thought of that? We could protect her. The French aren’t always as romantic as they’re often portrayed.”

“Elisabeth lived through the battle of Berlin,” I said. “She was raped by the Russians. Besides, she’s not the type to give a man an injection of thiopental on the streets of Göttingen in broad daylight. When Grottsch tells his story, I imagine the French will think the Russians pinched me, don’t you? After all, that’s what you wanted them to think, isn’t it? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your men were speaking Russian when they grabbed him. Just for appearance’s sake.”

“At least tell me if she lives in the East or the West.”

“In the West. The French gave me a passport in the name of Sébastien Kléber. You’ll be able to check me coming through Checkpoint Alpha at Helmstedt, and into Berlin at the Dreilinger Crossing. But not leaving it to enter East Berlin.”

“All right. Tell me your news about Erich Mielke.”