“They were pretty pissed off with him, apparently. Especially his CO, Otto Rasch. He accused Schulz of being weak and letting the side down. He asked Schulz where was his sense of duty and all that crap. Not that Schulz said he was surprised about this. He said that Rasch was one of those bastards who liked to make sure that everyone, officers included, had to pull the trigger on at least one Jew. So that we were all equally guilty, I suppose. Only he had another word for it: one of those compound words that Himmler used at Pretzsch. Blood part, I think it was.

“Anyway, Schulz didn’t know what fate awaited him back in Berlin. He was nervous and apprehensive, to say the least. I suppose he was hoping his behavior would be overlooked and he’d get the okay to resume his police work in Hamburg, or Bremen. ‘I’m not cut out for this kind of thing,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, he said, ‘I care nothing for the Jews, but no one should be asked to do this kind of work. No one. They should find some other means of doing it,’ he said. That’s what he told me, anyway.”

“So,” said Earp. “Are you telling us your alibi is another convicted war criminal?”

“Schulz was convicted? I didn’t know that.”

“Gave himself up in 1945,” said Earp. “He was convicted in October 1947 of crimes against humanity and sentenced to twenty years. That was commuted to fifteen years in 1951.”

“You mean he’s here, in Landsberg? Well, then he can confirm our conversation on the flight back to Berlin. That I told him what I already told you. How I was sent back for refusing to kill Jews.”

“He was paroled last January,” said Earp. “Too bad, Gunther.”

“I don’t think he’d have made such a great character witness for you, anyway,” said Silverman. “He was a brigadier general in the SS when he gave himself up.”

“The reason Bruno Streckenbach went easy on Schulz is obvious,” said Earp. “Because he participated in the murders of fifteen thousand Jews before he sickened of the work. Probably Streckenbach figured Schulz had done more than his fair share of killing.”

“And I guess that must be why you let him go, too,” I said.

“I told you,” said Silverman. “That was down to the high commissioner. And the recommendations of the Parole and Clemency Board for War Criminals.”

I shook my head. I was tired. They’d been nipping at my heels the whole day like a pair of nine-to-five bloodhounds. I felt like I was trapped up a tree with nowhere left to run.