In front of the German War Memorial a company of Reichswehr were making trade for chiropodists to the accompaniment of a brass band. Sometimes I think that there must be more brass bands in Germany than there are motor-cars. This one struck up with The Great Elector’s Cavalry March and set off at a lick towards the Brandenburger Tor. Everyone who was watching was getting in some arm exercise, so I hung back, pausing in a shop doorway to avoid having to join them.

I walked on, following the parade at a discreet distance and reflecting on the last alterations to the capital’s most famous avenue: changes that the Government has deemed to be necessary to make Unter den Linden more suitable for military parades like the one I was watching. Not content with removing most of the lime trees which had given the avenue its name, they had erected white Doric columns on top of which sat German eagles; new lime trees had been planted, but these were not even as tall as the street lamps. The central lane had been widened, so that military columns might march twelve abreast, and was strewn with red sand so that their jackboots did not slip. And tall white flagpoles were being erected for the imminent Olympiad. Unter den Linden had always been flamboyant, without much harmony in its mixture of architectural designs and styles; but that flamboyance was now made brutal. The bohemian’s fedora had become a Pickelhaube.

The Café Kranzler, on the corner of Friedrichstrasse, was popular with the tourists and prices were accordingly high; so it was not the sort of place that I would have expected Neumann to have chosen for a meet. I found him twitching over a cup of mocha and an abandoned piece of cake.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said, sitting down. ‘Lost your appetite?’

Neumann sneered at his plate. ‘Just like this Government,’ he said. ‘It looks damn good, but tastes of absolutely nothing. Lousy ersatz cream.’ I waved to the waiter and ordered two coffees. ‘Look, Herr Gunther, can we make this quick? I’m going over to Karlshorst this afternoon.’

‘Oh? Got a tip, have you?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact -’

I laughed. ‘Neumann, I wouldn’t bet on a horse that you were going to back if it could out-pace the Hamburg Express.’

‘So fuck off, then,’ he snapped.

If he was a member of the human race at all, Neumann was its least attractive specimen. His eyebrows, twitching and curling like two poisoned caterpillars, were joined together by an irregular scribble of poorly matched hair. Behind thick glasses that were almost opaque with greasy thumbprints, his grey eyes were shifty and nervous, searching the floor as if he expected that at any moment he would be lying flat on it. Cigarette smoke poured out from between teeth that were so badly stained with tobacco they looked like two wooden fences.