“After Gebauer left Janowska in 1943, the camp was run by Wilhaus and Warzok, and any pretense that it was a labor camp was abandoned. Mass exterminations, medical experiments, you name it, they did it at Janowska. Wilhaus and some of the others were hanged by the Russians. As a matter of fact they filmed it. Sat them on a truck with halters around their necks and then drove the truck away. Warzok and some of the others are still at large. Wilhaus’s wife, Hilde—she’s wanted by the Russians. So is an SS captain called Gruen. A Gestapo Kommissar called Wepke. And a couple of NCOs, Rauch and Kepich.”

“What did Wilhaus’s wife do?”

“She murdered prisoners to amuse her daughter. When the Russians got close, Warzok and the rest moved to Plaszow, and then Gross-Rosen—a quarry camp near Breslau. Others went to Majdanek and Mauthausen. After that, who knows? If you ask me, Bernie, looking for Warzok will be like looking for a pin in a hay-loft. If I were you, I’d be inclined to forget about it and get myself another client.”

“Then it’s lucky she asked me and not you.”

“She must smell really nice.”

“Better than you and me.”

“It goes without saying, Bernie,” said Korsch. “The federal government prefers us to keep downwind of the Amis. So as not to scare off the new investment that’s coming here. That’s why they want all these war crimes investigations to finish. So we can all get on and make some money. You know, I bet I could get you fixed up with something here at the paper, Bernie. They could use a good private investigator.”

“For those undercover stories that won’t spoil anyone’s breakfast? Is that it?”

“Communists,” said Korsch. “That’s what people want to read about. Spy stories. Stories about life in the Russian Zone and how terrible it is. Plots to destabilize the new federal government.”

“Thanks, Friedrich, but no,” I said. “If that’s really what they want to read about, I’d probably end up investigating myself.”