‘Go right ahead, Herr Gunther,’ he said, opening the front gate. ‘Not that there’s much to see. They took bags of stuff away with them. I doubt there’s anything that would be of interest to you. I don’t even know why I’m still here.’

‘I expect it’s to watch out in case the murderer returns to the scene of the crime,’ I said tantalizingly.

‘Lord, do you think he might?’ breathed the boy.

I pursed my lips. ‘Who knows?’ I said, although personally I had never heard of such a thing. ‘I’ll take a look anyway, and thanks, I appreciate it.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

He was right. There wasn’t much to see. The man with the matches had done a proper job. I looked in at the front door, but there was so much debris I couldn’t see anywhere for me to step. Round to the side I found a window that gave onto another room where the going wasn’t so difficult underfoot. Hoping that I might at least find the safe, I climbed inside. Not that I needed to be there at all. I just wanted to form a picture inside my head. I work better that way: I’ve got a mind like a comic book. So I wasn’t too disappointed when I found that the police had already taken the safe away, and that all that was left was a gaping hole in the wall. There was always Illmann, I told myself.

Back at the gate I found Wilhelm trying to comfort an older woman of about sixty, whose face was stained with tears.

‘The cleaning woman,’ he explained. ‘She turned up just now. Apparently she’s been away on holiday and hadn’t heard about the fire. Poor old soul’s had a bit of a shock.’ He asked her where she lived.

‘Neuenburger Strasse,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m all right now, thank you, young man.’ From her coat pocket she produced a small lace handkerchief which seemed as improbable in her large, peasant hands as an antimacassar in those of Max Schmelling, the boxer, and quite inadequate for the task which lay before it: she blew her pickled-walnut of a nose with the sort of ferocity and volume that made me want to hold my hat on my head. Then she wiped her big, broad face with the soggy remnant. Smelling some information about the Pfarr household, I offered the old pork chop a lift home in my car.

‘It’s on the way,’ I said.

‘I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘It’s no trouble at all,’ I insisted.