‘You mean apart from being a Jew?’ I said. Already I could see that she had led quite a sheltered life, even for a Regensburger, and it seemed a shame to expose the poor woman to the potentially distressing sight of her country’s evil-smelling arse. Still, she was all grown-up now, and I didn’t have the time to worry about it.

‘He just helped an old man who was being beaten up by some thugs. He killed one of them.’

‘But surely if he was helping the old man -’

‘Ah, but the old man was Jewish,’ I explained. ‘And the two thugs belonged to the SA. Strange how that changes everything, isn’t it? His mother asked me to find out if he was still alive and still at liberty. You see, when a man is arrested and beheaded or sent to a KZ, the authorities don’t always bother to inform his family. There are a lot of MPs — missing persons - from Jewish families these days. Trying to find them is a large part of my business.’ Frau Protze looked worried.

‘You help Jews?’ she said.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘It’s perfectly legal. And their money is as good as anyone’s.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Listen, Frau Protze,’ I said. ‘Jews, gypsies, Red Indians, it’s all the same to me. I’ve got no reason to like them, but I don’t have any reason to hate them either. When he walks through that door, a Jew gets the same deal as anyone else. Same as if he were the Kaiser’s cousin. But it doesn’t mean I’m dedicated to their welfare. Business is business.’

‘Certainly,’ said Frau Protze, colouring a little. ‘I hope you don’t think I have anything against the Jews.’

‘Of course not,’ I said. But of course that is what everybody says. Even Hitler.

‘Good God,’ I said, when the U-Boat’s mother had left my office. ‘That’s what a satisfied customer looks like.’ The thought depressed me so much that I decided to get out for a while.

At Loeser & Wolff I bought a packet of Murattis, after which I cashed Six’s cheque. I paid half of it into my own account; and I treated myself to an expensive silk dressing-gown at Wertheim’s just for being lucky enough to land as sweet an earner as Six.

Then I walked south-west, past the railway station from which a train now rumbled forth heading towards the Jannowitz Bridge, to the corner of Königstrasse where I had left my car.

Lichterfelde-Ost is a prosperous residential district in south-west Berlin much favoured by senior civil servants and members of the armed forces. Ordinarily it would have been way out of a young couple’s price league, but then most young couples don’t have a multi-millionaire like Hermann Six for a father.