“Nevertheless, it’s hard to believe that it’s difficult to find the company of a certain kind of woman, if that is what one wants. One imagines that the Nazis can only do so much to change things. After all, it’s not called the oldest profession for nothing.”

I smiled.

“Did I say something amusing?”

“No, not at all, Frau Rubusch. It’s just that after I found your husband dead, I went to a lot of trouble to persuade the police to spare you some of the details when they informed you that he was dead. To leave out the fact that he had been in bed with another woman. I had the quaint idea that it might upset you unnecessarily.”

“That was very thoughtful of you. Perhaps you’re right. You’re not as tough as you look.”

She sipped some of her schnapps and put the glass down on a flame birch coffee table: the X-shaped base made it look like something from Roman antiquity. Frau Rubusch had a sort of Roman air herself. Maybe it was just the way she was sitting, half reclined on her sofa, but it was easy to imagine her as the influential and steely wife of some fat senator who had, perhaps, outlived his usefulness.

“Tell me, Herr Gunther. Is it normal for ex-policemen to be in possession of a police file?”

“No. I’ve been helping out a friend in Homicide. And, to tell the truth, I miss the work. Your husband’s case gave me an itch I simply had to scratch.”

“Yes, I can see how that might happen. You said you were reading my husband’s case file on the train. Is it inside that briefcase?”

“Yes.”

“I would very much like to look at that file.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t think that would be a good idea. The file contains photographs of your husband’s body as he was found in his hotel room.”

“I was hoping it did. Those pictures are what I’d like to see. Oh, you needn’t worry about me. Did you not think I would look at him before we buried him?”

I could see there was no point in arguing with her. Besides, as far as I was concerned, there were other things I wanted to discuss with her more important than the happy smile on her dead husband’s face. So I opened my briefcase, took out the KRIPO file, and handed it over.

As soon as she saw the photograph, she started to cry, and for a moment, I cursed myself for taking Frau Rubusch at her word. But then she let out a breath, fanned herself with the flat of her hand, and, swallowing an almost visible lump in her throat, said, “And this is how you found him?”

“Yes. Exactly as we found him.”