‘Wait!’ Maria called. She held up her oval bronze Criminal Police disc. ‘Police …’ She was relying on the young Ukrainian not challenging her and asking to see her police identification card, which would, of course, reveal that she was several hundred kilometres outside her jurisdiction. The young man looked startled. Afraid. ‘It’s okay,’ Maria said, with a tired smile. ‘I’m not interested in your status here. I just need to ask a few questions.’

The Ukrainian nodded tersely. Maria took her large black notebook from her coat pocket.

‘You are … ?’ Maria made a show of searching for his name in the notebook, as if she had it recorded somewhere, which she hadn’t.

‘Slavko Dmytruk …’ said the young Ukrainian, seeming eager to cooperate. He still stole a peek back into the kitchen to make sure no one could see them. He stepped out a little from the doorway and pulled the fire door almost closed. He fumbled in his pocket for his ID card and handed it to Maria. It proved he was illegal: the ID card was not German, his photograph was captioned in Cyrillic writing and the yellow trident on a blue field identified the card as Ukrainian.

‘I have not done anything wrong,’ said Slavko; his German was almost impenetrably accented. ‘I want stay in Germany. I good worker.’

‘I didn’t say that you had done anything wrong. I just want to ask you a few questions,’ said Maria.

‘About what?’

‘About how you got here.’

Slavko’s unease shifted into genuine fear. ‘I don’t know what you talk about.’

‘How you got here from Ukraine,’ said Maria in as soothing a tone as she could manage. She could see that Slavko was becoming more and more agitated. She found herself wishing she had Fabel’s knack of putting people at ease. ‘There’s no need to be alarmed, Slavko. No one will know that it was you I got the information from. I promise. But, if you don’t cooperate, then I will be forced to inform immigration.’ Maria spoke slowly and in simple German, giving him time to take in what she had said. ‘Do you understand, Slavko? I need to know who arranged your transport here, got you the job, somewhere to live …’

‘I don’t know … very dangerous man. Very dangerous people.’ The young Ukrainian glanced back towards the crack in the door.

‘Most of them are, Slavko. But I need to know who got you this job.’

‘I work hard.’ Slavko looked close to tears. ‘I work so hard. I want send money back to family in Ukraine. But I can’t. I work all day and most of night and I have to give half to the man who brought me here. Then he take half of what left for where I sleep. It not fair. Not fair at all.’