‘Look, if I don’t black horse him a little and drag my heels about paying him that kind of mouse, then he’ll figure I’m worth a lot more. Bruno, as soon as I saw that son of a bitch I knew that the evening was going to cost me something. Before I left Kripo he and Wecke had me marked. I haven’t forgotten and neither has he. I still owe him some agony.’

‘Well, you certainly made it expensive for yourself when you mentioned the price of that gown.’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘It cost nearer a hundred.’

‘Christ,’ breathed Stahlecker. ‘Tesmer is right. You are making too much money.’ He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and looked squarely at me. ‘Want to tell me what really happened here?’

‘Another time, Bruno. It was mostly true.’

‘Excepting one or two small details.’

‘Right. Listen, I need a favour. Can we meet tomorrow? The matinee at the Kammerlichtespiele in the Haus Vaterland. Back row, at four o’clock.’

Bruno sighed, and then nodded. ‘I’ll try.’

‘Before then see if you can’t find out something about the Paul Pfarr case.’ He frowned and was about to speak when Tesmer returned from the lavatory.

‘I hope you wiped the floor.’

Tesmer pointed a face at me in which belligerence was moulded like cornice-work on a Gothic folly. The set of his jaw and the spread of his nose gave him about as much profile as a piece of lead piping. The general effect was early-Paleolithic.

‘I hope you decided to get wise,’ he growled. There would have been more chance of reasoning with a water buffalo.

‘Seems like I don’t have much choice,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a receipt?’

Chapter 7

7

Just off Clayallee, on the edge of Dahlem, was the huge wrought-iron gate to Six’s estate. I sat in the car for a while and watched the road. Several times I closed my eyes and found my head nodding. It had been a late night. After a short nap I got out and opened the gate. Then I ambled back to the car and turned onto the private road, down a long, gentle slope and into the cool shade cast by the dark pine trees lining its gravelled length.

In daylight Six’s house was even more impressive, although I could see now that it was not one but two houses, standing close together: beautiful, solidly built Wilhelmine farmhouses.

I pulled up at the front door, where Ilse Rudel had parked her BMW the night I had first seen her, and got out, leaving the door open just in case the two Dobermanns put in an appearance. Dogs are not at all keen on private investigators, and it’s an antipathy that is entirely mutual.