“Not me. I’ve only just got used to the idea that we lost the war. Everyone says the Jews were to blame for that, but I always thought it was the navy’s fault. It was them who got us into it and their mutiny that forced us to quit. But for them we might have fought on, to an honorable peace.”

“You sound like you regret that.”

“Only the fact that the wrong people signed the armistice. The army should have done it instead of the politicians, which let the army off the hook rather, and which is why we’re in the state we’re in. D’you see?”

“Not really.”

“No? Well, that’s half the problem. Nobody does. Least of all us Germans. Most mornings I wake up and think I must have imagined the last two years. The last twenty-four hours most of all. What does a woman like you see in a man like me?”

She took my left hand and squeezed it. “A man like you. You make that sound as if there’s more than one. There isn’t. I know. I’ve looked. And in all kinds of places. Including the bed we slept in. Last night I was wondering how I’d feel in the morning. Well, now I know.”

“How do you feel?”

“Scared.”

“Of what?”

“The way I feel, of course. Like you’re driving the car.”

“I am driving the car.” I wiggled the steering wheel for effect.

“At home no one ever drives me anywhere. I like to drive myself. I prefer to decide when to start and when to stop. But with you, I really don’t mind. I wouldn’t mind if you decided to drive us all the way to China and back.”

“China? It’d be enough for me just to have you stay on in Berlin for a while.”

“So what’s stopping me?”

“Perhaps Nick Charalambides. And your newspaper article. And maybe this. That it’s my honest opinion that Isaac Deutsch wasn’t murdered at all. That his death was an accident. No one drowned him. He drowned. Without any help from anyone else. Right here in the center of Berlin. I know, it’s not as good a story if he wasn’t murdered. But what can I do?”

“Damn.”

“Exactly.”

For a moment I was reminded of Richard Bömer and his disappointment at discovering that Isaac Deutsch was Jewish. And now here was Noreen Charalambides, disappointed to discover the poor guy hadn’t been murdered. It’s a hell of a world.

“Are you sure?”