“Then it’s very lucky he took five marks from me instead of from the Red Cross,” I said. “I can afford to lose it.” I smiled warmly at her but she wasn’t near being thawed.

“What can I do for you?” she asked coolly.

“I’m looking for Father Gotovina.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No,” I said. “I thought I’d save him the trouble of meeting me at the Praesidium.”

“The Police Praesidium?” Like most Germans the ham was still apprehensive where the police were concerned. “On Ettstrasse?”

“With the stone lion in front of the entrance,” I said. “That’s right. Have you been there?”

“No,” she said, keen to be rid of me now. “Take the elevator to the second floor. You’ll find Father Gotovina in the Passport and Visa Section. Room twenty-nine.”

At first glance the man operating the elevator looked not much older than me. It was only after the second glance, when you’d finished taking in the one leg and the scar on his face that the third glance told you he was probably not much more than twenty-five. I got in the car with him, and said “two” and he went into action with the well-practiced air and grim determination of a man operating a 20mm Flak 38—the gun with the foot pedals and the collapsing seat. Stepping out onto the second floor I almost glanced up to see if he’d hit anything. It was just as well I didn’t, because if I had I’d have tripped over the man painting a skirting board that ran the length of a corridor as big as a bowling alley.

The Passport and Visa Section was like a state within a state. More typewriters, more filing cabinets, more forms to be filled, and more meaty-looking women. Each of them looked like she ate a Red Cross parcel, including the wrapping paper and string, for breakfast. There was a guy standing around beside a 50mm camera with a trip and hood. Outside the window there was a good view of the Angel of Peace monument on the other side of the River Isar. Erected in 1899 to commemorate the Franco-Prussian War, it hadn’t meant much then and it certainly didn’t mean much now.