WE WALKED TO A TAXI RANK and took a cab to the address in Britz. South of another modern apartment building called the Horseshoe and next to the Grossmann Coburg canned-meat factory was a decayed archway that was the entrance to a series of courtyards and tenement buildings of the kind that might convince any architect that he was some kind of messiah come to save people from their squalor and poverty. Personally, I never minded a little squalor. To be honest, for a long time after the war I hardly noticed it.

Passing through another archway, we came upon a tatty sign for infrared health lamps painted onto the brickwork. That seemed a little optimistic, to say the least. We mounted a dark stairway that led up into the building’s tomblike interior. Somewhere a barrel organ was churning out a melancholy tune that matched our lowering spirits. A German tenement building could have sucked all the light out of the second coming.

Halfway up the stairs we passed a woman who was on her way down. There was a bicycle wheel in her hand and a loaf of bread under her arm. A few steps behind her was a boy of about ten or eleven wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth. The woman smiled and nodded a little bow in Noreen’s direction or, as seemed more likely, at the sable coat she was wearing. This prompted Noreen to ask if we were on the right flight of stairs for Herr Deutsch. The woman with the bicycle wheel answered respectfully that it was, and we carried on up, stepping carefully around a second woman who was on her knees, scrubbing the stairs with a heavy brush and something noxious in a bucket. She had heard us ask about Joey Deutsch, and as we moved past, she said, “Tell that Jew it’s his turn to clean the stairs.”

“Tell him yourself,” said Noreen.

“I did,” said the woman. “Just now. But he paid no notice. Didn’t even come to the door. Which is why I’m doing it myself.”

“Perhaps he’s not in,” said Noreen.

“Oh, he’s in there, all right. He must be. I saw him go up there a while ago and I haven’t seen him come down. Besides, his door is open.” She went at the steps with the brush for several seconds. “I expect he’s avoiding me.”

“Does he normally leave his front door open?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.

“What? Around here? Are you joking? But I think he must be expecting someone. You, perhaps, if your name is Gunther. There’s a note stuck on the door.”