My head throbbed like a hot Dobermann. I tried raising it from the floor of the car, and found that my hands were handcuffed behind me; but the sudden, violent pain in my head made me oblivious to anything else but not moving my head again . . .

. . . a hundred thousand jackboots goose-stepping their way up Unter den Linden, with a man pointing a microphone down at them to pick up the awe-inspiring sound of an army crunching like an enormous great horse. An air-raid alarm. A barrage being laid down on the enemy trenches to cover the advance. Just as we were going over the top a big one exploded right above our heads, and blew us all off our feet. Cowering in a shell-hole full of incinerated frogs, with my head inside a grand piano, my ears ringing as the hammers hit the strings, I waited for the sound of battle to end . . .

Groggy, I felt myself being pulled out of the car, and then half carried, half dragged into a building. The handcuffs were removed, and I was sat down on a chair and held there so as to stop me falling off it. A man smelling of carbolic and wearing a uniform went through my pockets. As he pulled their linings inside out, I felt the collar of my jacket sticky against my neck, and when I touched it I found that it was blood from where I had been sapped. After that someone took a quick look at my head and said that I was fit enough to answer a few questions, although he might just as well have said I was ready to putt the shot. They got me a coffee and a cigarette.

‘Do you know where you are?’ I had to stop myself from shaking my head before mumbling that I didn’t.

‘You’re at the Königs Weg Kripo Stelle, in the Grunewald.’ I sipped some of my coffee and nodded slowly.

‘I am Kriminalinspektor Hingsen,’ said the man. ‘And this is Wachmeister Wentz.’ He jerked his head at the uniformed man standing beside him, the one who smelt of carbolic. ‘Perhaps you’d care to tell us what happened.’

‘If your lot hadn’t hit me so hard I might find it easier to remember,’ I heard myself croak.

The Inspektor glanced at the sergeant, who shrugged blankly. ‘We didn’t hit you,’ he said.

‘What’s that?’

‘I said, we didn’t hit you.’

Gingerly, I touched the back of my head, and then inspected the dried blood on my fingers’ ends. ‘I suppose I did this when I was brushing my hair, is that it?’

‘You tell us,’ said the Inspektor. I heard myself sigh.

‘What is going on here? I don’t understand. You’ve seen my I D, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said the Inspektor. ‘Look, why don’t you start at the beginning? Assume we know absolutely nothing.’