‘You may be right, sir,’ I said unhappily, ‘but it’s not up to me. I’m only obeying orders.’ That was the typically German excuse for everything these days, and I felt ashamed using it.

Becker put his head round the kitchen door.

‘Could I have a word, sir?’

It was my turn to be glad to leave the room.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said bitterly. ‘Forgotten how to boil a kettle?’

He handed me a newspaper cutting, from the Beobachter. ‘Take a look at this, sir. I found it in the drawer here.’

It was an advertisement for a ‘Rolf Vogelmann, Private Investigator, Missing Persons a Speciality’, the same advertisement that Bruno Stahlecker had used to plague me with.

Becker pointed to the date at the top of the cutting: ‘3 October,’ he said. ‘Four days after Liza Ganz disappeared.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time that people got tired waiting for the police to come up with something,’ I said. ‘After all, that’s how I used to make a comparatively honest living.’

Becker collected some cups and saucers and put them on to a tray with the coffee pot. ‘Do you suppose that they might have used him, sir?’

‘I don’t see any harm in asking.’

Ganz was unrepentant, the sort of client I wouldn’t have minded working for myself.

‘As I said, Kommissar, there was nothing in the newspapers about our daughter, and we saw your colleague here only twice. So as time passed we wondered just what efforts were being made to find our daughter. It’s the not knowing that gets to you. We thought that if we hired Herr Vogelmann then at least we could be sure that someone was doing his best to try and find her. I don’t mean to be rude, Kommissar, but that’s the way it was.’

I sipped my coffee and shook my head.

‘I quite understand,’ I said. ‘I’d probably have done the same thing myself. I just wish this Vogelmann had been able to find her.’

You had to admire them, I thought. They could probably ill-afford the services of a private investigator and yet they had still gone ahead and hired one. It might even have cost them whatever savings they had.

When we had finished our coffee and were leaving I suggested that a police car might come round and bring Herr Ganz down to the Alex to identify the body early the following morning.

‘Thank you for your kindness, Kommissar,’ said Frau Ganz, attempting a smile. ‘Everyone’s been so kind.’

Her husband nodded his agreement. Hovering by the open door, he was obviously keen to see the back of us.

‘Herr Vogelmann wouldn’t take any money from us. And now you’re arranging a car for my husband. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.’

I squeezed her hand sympathetically, and then we left.