‘Pregnant.’ I repeated the word thoughtfully. Illmann stretched and yawned.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Want to know what they had for dinner?’

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Tell me about the safe instead. Was it open or shut?’

‘Open.’ He paused. ‘You know, it’s interesting, you didn’t ask me how it was opened. Which leads me to suppose that you already knew that beyond a bit of scorching, the safe was undamaged; that if the safe was opened illegally, then it was done by someone who knew what he was doing. A Stockinger safe is no pushover.’

‘Any piano players on it?’ Illmann shook his head.

‘It was too badly scorched to take any prints,’ he said.

‘Let us assume,’ I said, ‘that immediately prior to the deaths of the Pfarrs, the safe contained — what it contained, and that it was, as it should have been, locked up for the night.’

‘Very well.’

‘Then there are two possibilities: one is that a professional nutcracker did the job and then killed them; and the other is that someone forced them to open it and then ordered them back to bed where he shot them. Still, it’s not like a pro to have left the safe door open.’

‘Unless he was trying hard to look like an amateur,’ said Illmann. ‘My own opinion is that they were both asleep when they were shot. Certainly from the angle of bullet entry I would say that both of them were lying down. Now if you were conscious, and someone had a gun on you, it’s more than likely you would be sitting up in bed. And so I would conclude that your intimidation theory is unlikely.’ He looked at his watch and finished his beer. Patting my leg, he added warmly, ‘It’s been good, Bernie. Just like the old days. How pleasant to talk to someone whose idea of detective work does not involve a spotlight and a set of brass knuckles. Still. I won’t have to put up with the Alex for much longer. Our illustrious Reichskriminaldirektor, Arthur Nebe, is retiring me, just as he’s retired the other old conservatives before me.’

‘I didn’t know you were interested in politics,’ I said.

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘But isn’t that how Hitler got elected in the first place: too many people who didn’t give a shit who was running the country? The funny thing is that I care even less now than I did before. Catch me joining those March Violets on the bandwagon. But I won’t be sorry to leave. I’m tired of all the squabbling that goes on between Sipo and Orpo as to who controls Kripo. It gets very confusing when it comes to filing a report, not knowing whether or not one should be involving our uniformed friends in Orpo.’

‘I thought Sipo and the Gestapo were in the Kripo driving seat.’