I share the fourth floor with a ‘German’ dentist, a ‘German’ insurance broker, and a ‘German’ employment agency, the latter having provided me with the temporary secretary who I now presumed was the woman seated in my waiting room. Coming out of the lift I hoped that she wasn’t battle-scarred ugly. I didn’t suppose for a minute that I was going to get a juicy one, but then I wasn’t about to settle for any cobra either. I opened the door.

‘Herr Gunther?’ She stood up, and I gave her the once-over: well, she wasn’t as young as Gruber had led me to believe (I guessed her to be about forty-five) but not bad, I thought. A bit warm and cosy maybe (she had a substantial backside), but I happen to prefer them like that. Her hair was red with a touch of grey at the sides and on the crown, and tied back in a knot. She wore a suit of plain grey cloth, a white high-necked blouse and a black hat with a Breton brim turned up all around the head.

‘Good morning,’ I said, as affably as I could manage on top of the mewling tomcat that was my hangover. ‘You must be my temporary secretary.’ Lucky to get a woman at all, and this one looked half-reasonable.

‘Frau Protze,’ she declared, and shook my hand. ‘I’m a widow.’

‘Sorry,’ I said, unlocking the door to my office. ‘What part of Bavaria are you from?’ The accent was unmistakable.

‘Regensburg.’

‘That’s a nice town.’

‘You must have found buried treasure there.’ Witty too, I thought; that was good: she’d need a sense of humour to work for me.

I told her all about my business. She said it all sounded very exciting. I showed her into the adjoining cubicle where she was to sit on that backside.

‘Actually, it’s not so bad if you leave the door to the waiting room open,’ I explained. Then I showed her the washroom along the corridor and apologized for the shards of soap and the dirty towels. ‘I pay seventy-five marks a month and I get a tip like this,’ I said. ‘Damn it, I’m going to complain to that son-of-a-bitch of a landlord.’ But even as I said it I knew I never would.

Back in my office I flipped open my diary and saw that the day’s only appointment was Frau Heine, at eleven o’clock.

‘I’ve an appointment in twenty minutes,’ I said. ‘Woman wants to know if I’ve managed to trace her missing son. He’s a Jewish U-Boat.’

‘A what?’

‘A Jew in hiding.’

‘What did he do that he has to hide?’ she said.