There was all that for choosing to die, plus the arrival of a guest at the hotel. A guest I recognized and wished I hadn’t. But I’ll come to him in a moment. Before that I have to explain why I’m still here.

I went into the garage underneath my small apartment in Villefranche, closed the door, and waited in the car with the engine turning over. Carbon monoxide poisoning isn’t so bad. You just shut your eyes and go to sleep. If the car hadn’t stalled or perhaps just run out of gas I wouldn’t be here now. I thought I might try it again another time, if things didn’t improve and if I bought a more reliable motor car. On the other hand, I could have returned to Berlin, like my poor wife, which might have achieved the same result. Even today it’s just as easy to get yourself killed there as it ever was, and if I were to go back to the former German capital, I don’t think it would be very long before someone was kind enough to organize my sudden death. One side or the other has got it in for me, and with good reason. When I was living in Berlin and being a cop or an ex-cop, I managed to offend almost everyone, with the possible exception of the British. Even so, I miss the city a lot. I miss the beer, of course, and the sausage. I miss being a cop when being Berlin police still meant something good. But mostly I miss the people, who were as sour as I am. Even Germans don’t like Berliners, and it’s a feeling that’s usually reciprocated. Berliners don’t like anyone very much—especially the women, which, somehow, only makes them more attractive to a dumbhead like me. There’s nothing more attractive to a man than a beautiful woman who really doesn’t care if he lives or dies. I miss the women most of all. There were so many women. I think about the good women I’ve known—quite a few of the bad ones, too—whom I’ll never see again and sometimes I start crying and from there it’s only a short trip to the garage and asphyxiation, especially if I’ve been drinking. Which, at home, is most of the time.