In the heart of West Berlin, just south of the Zoological Garden Station, is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. With its many spires of differing heights, it looks more like the castle of the Swan Knight Lohengrin than any place of religious worship. Grouped around the church were cinemas, dance halls, cabarets, restaurants, smart shops, and, at the western end of the Tauentzienstrasse, sandwiched between a cheap hotel and the Kaufhaus des Westens, was the T-gym.

I parked the car, got Mrs. Charalambides out, and then turned to gaze in the KaDeWe’s shop window. “This is a pretty good department store,” I said.

“No.”

“Oh, it is. The restaurant’s good, too.”

“I mean, no, I’m not going shopping while you go in that gym.”

“How about you go in the gym and I go shopping? There’s a mark on this tie I’m wearing.”

“Then you’d hardly be doing your job. You don’t know much about women if you think I’m not coming into the gym with you.”

“Who said I know anything about women?” I shrugged. “The one thing I know for sure about women is that they walk along the street with their arms folded. Men don’t do that. Not unless they’re queer.”

“You wouldn’t be doing your job, and I wouldn’t pay you. How about that?”

“I’m glad you mentioned that, Mrs. Charalambides. How much are you paying me? We never actually agreed on a fee.”

“Tell me what you think would be fair.”

“That’s a difficult one. I’ve not had much practice at being fair. Fair’s a word I use for what’s on a barometer or perhaps to describe a maiden who’s in distress.”

“Why don’t you think of me like that and then suggest a price.”

“Because if I ever did think of you like that, then I’d have to charge you nothing at all. I don’t recall Lohengrin asking Elsa for ten marks a day.”

“Maybe he should have done. Then he might not have left her.”

“True.”

“Well, then, ten marks a day plus expenses it shall be.”

She smiled, enough to let me know that her dentist loved her, and then took my arm. She could have taken the other one to match, and I wouldn’t have objected. Not that ten marks a day had anything to do with it. Just being near enough to smell her and get the odd snapshot of her garters when she climbed out of Behlert’s car was payment enough. We turned away from the department-store window and went along to the T-gym door.