She shrugged with disbelief. ‘How did you know I had a lover?’ she said.

I got out of bed, and started to dress. ‘I didn’t need a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers to pick that one up. It stands to reason that if you didn’t already have a lover, then you wouldn’t be so damned nervous of me.’ She gave me a smile that was as thin and dubious as the rubber on a secondhand condom.

‘No? I bet you’re the sort who could find lice on a bald head. Anyway, who said I was nervous of you? I just don’t happen to care for the interruption of my privacy. Look, I think you had better push off.’ She turned her back to me as she spoke.

‘I’m on my way.’ I buttoned up my braces and slipped my jacket on. At the bedroom door, I made one last try to get through to her.

‘For the last time, I wasn’t hired to check up on you.’

‘You’ve made a fool of me.’

I shook my head. ‘There’s not enough sense in anything you’ve said to fill a hollow tooth. With all your milkmaid’s calculations, you didn’t need my help to make a fool of yourself. Thanks for a memorable evening.’ As I left her room she started to curse me with the sort of eloquence you expect only from a man who has just hammered his thumb.

I drove home feeling like a ventriloquist’s mouth ulcer. I was sore at the way things had turned out. It’s not every day that one of Germany’s great film stars takes you to bed and then throws you out on your ear. I’d like to have had more time to grow familiar with her famous body. I was a man who had won the big prize at the fair, only to be told there had been a mistake. All the same, I said to myself, I ought to have expected something like that. Nothing resembles a street snapper so much as a rich woman.

Once inside my apartment I poured myself a drink and then boiled some water for a bath. After that, I put on the dressing-gown I’d bought in Wertheim’s and started to feel good again. The place was stuffy, so I opened a few windows. Then I tried reading for a while. I must have fallen asleep, because a couple of hours had passed by the time I heard the knock at the door.

‘Who is it?’ I said, going into the hall.

‘Open up. Police,’ said a voice.

‘What do you want?’

‘To ask you some questions about Ilse Rudel,’ he said. ‘She was found dead at her apartment an hour ago. Murdered.’ I snatched the door open and found the barrel of a Parabellum poking me in the stomach.