About a week later she came back. The tall one. Tall women are always better than short ones, especially the kind of tall women that short men seem to favor, who really aren’t that tall, they just seem that way. This one wasn’t quite as tall as the hoop on a basketball court, but a lot of her was just hair and a hat and high heels and hauteur. She had plenty of that. She looked as if she needed help as much as Venice needed rain. That’s something I appreciate in a client. I enjoy being pitched at by someone who’s not used to words like “please” and “thank you.” It brings out the ’forty-eighter in me. Sometimes even the Spartacist.

“I need your help, Herr Gunther,” she said, sitting down very carefully on the edge of my creaking green leather sofa. She kept hold of her briefcase for a moment, hugging it to her ample chest like a breastplate.

“Oh? What makes you think so?”

“You’re a private detective, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but why me? Why not use Preysings in Frauenstrasse? Or Klenze on Augustinerstrasse? They’re both bigger than me.”

She looked taken aback, as if I’d asked what color underwear she had on. I smiled encouragingly and told myself that so long as she was sitting on the edge of the sofa, I would just have to guess.

“What I’m trying to find out, Fräulein, is if someone recommended me. In this business, it’s the sort of thing you like to know.”

“Not Fräulein. It’s Frau Warzok. Britta Warzok. And yes, you were recommended to me.”

“Oh? By whom?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not say.”

“But you were the lady who turned up at Herr Krumper’s last week. My lawyer. Asking about my hotel? Only you were calling yourself Schmidt then, I believe.”

“Yes. Not very original of me, I know. But I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to hire you or not. I had been here a couple of times and you were out and I didn’t care to leave a message in your mailbox. The concierge said that he thought you owned a hotel in Dachau. I thought I might find you there. I saw the ‘For Sale’ sign and then I went to Krumper’s office.”

Some of that might have been true, but I let it go, for now. I was enjoying her discomfort and her elegant long legs too much to scare her off. But I didn’t see any harm in teasing her a little.

“And yet when you came in here the other night,” I said, “you said you’d made a mistake.”

“I changed my mind,” she said. “That’s all.”