Red Dieter, his black shirt-sleeves rolled up, and his collar off, stood up from the green-leather sofa and flicked his cigarette into the fire. Glancing first at Six and then at me, he looked uncertain as to whether he ought to look welcoming or worried. He didn’t get time to make a choice. Six stepped forwards, and caught him by the throat.

‘For God’s sake what have you done with her?’ From a corner of the room another man came to my assistance, and each of us taking one of the old man’s arms, we pulled him off.

‘Hold up, hold up,’ yelled Red. He straightened his jacket and tried to control his natural indignation. Then he glanced around his person, as if to check that his dignity was still intact.

Six continued to shout. ‘My daughter, what have you done with my daughter?’

The gangster frowned and looked quizzically at me. ‘What’s he fucking talking about?’

‘The two people your boys snatched from the beach house yesterday,’ I said urgently. ‘What have you done with them? Look, there’s no time for an explanation now, but the girl is his daughter.’

He looked incredulous. ‘You mean, she’s not dead after all?’ he said.

‘Come on, man,’ I said.

Red swore, his face darkened like dying gaslight, his lips quivering like he had just chewed on broken glass. A thin, blue vein stood off his square forehead like a piece of ivy on a brick wall. He pointed at Six.

‘Keep him here,’ he growled. Red shouldered his way through the men outside like an angry wrestler. ‘If this is one of your tricks, Gunther, I’ll personally fillet your fucking nose.’

‘I’m not that stupid. But as it happens, there is one thing that’s puzzling me.’

At the front door Red stopped and glared at me. His face was the colour of blood, almost purple with rage. ‘And what’s that?’

‘I had a girl working with me. Name of Inge Lorenz. She disappeared from the area of the beach house in Wannsee not long before your boys tapped me on the head.’

‘So why ask me?’

‘You’ve already kidnapped two people, so a third along the way might not be too much for your conscience to bear.’

Red almost spat in my face. ‘What’s a fucking conscience, then?’ he said, and carried on through the door.

Outside the inn I hurried after him in the direction of one of the boathouses. A man came out, buttoning up his flies. Misinterpreting his boss’s purposeful stride, he grinned.

‘You come to give her one as well, boss?’

Red drew level with the man, looked blankly at him for a second, and then punched him hard in the stomach. ‘Shut your stupid mouth,’ he roared, and kicked his way through the boathouse door. I stepped over the man’s gasping body and followed him inside.