In the pharmacy downstairs I bought some powders and swallowed one in the car. Becker looked at me with disgust.

‘Christ, I don’t know how you can do that,’ he said, shuddering.

‘It works faster that way. And after what we just went through I can’t say that I notice the taste much. I hate giving bad news.’ I swept my mouth with my tongue for the residue. ‘Well? What did you make of that? Get the same hunch as before?’

‘Yes. He was giving her all sorts of meaningful little looks.’

‘So were you, for that matter,’ I said, shaking my head in wonder.

Becker grinned broadly. ‘She wasn’t bad, was she?’

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me what she’d be like in bed, right?’

‘More your type I’d have thought, sir.’

‘Oh? What makes you say that?’

‘You know, the type that responds to kindness.’

I laughed, despite my headache. ‘More than she responds to bad news. There we are with our big feet and long faces and all she can do is look like she was in the middle of her period.’

‘She’s a nurse. They’re used to handling bad news.’

‘That crossed my mind, but I think she’d done her crying already, and quite recently. What about Irma Hanke’s mother? Did she cry?’

‘God, no. As hard as Jew Suss that one. Maybe she did sniff a little when I first showed up. But they were giving off the same sort of atmosphere as the Ganzes.’

I looked at my watch. ‘I think we need a drink, don’t you?’

We drove to the Cafe Kerkau, on Alexanderstrasse. With sixty billiard tables, it was where a lot of bulls from the Alex went to relax when they came off duty.

I bought a couple of beers and carried them over to a table where Becker was practising a few shots.

‘Do you play?’ he said.

‘Are you stretching me out? This used to be my sitting-room.’ I picked up a stick and watched Becker shoot the cue ball. It hit the red, banked off the cushion and hit the other white ball square.

‘Care for a little bet?’

‘Not after that shot. You’ve got a lot to learn about working a line. Now if you’d missed it–’

‘Lucky shot, that’s all,’ Becker insisted. He bent down and cued a wild one which missed by half a metre.

I clicked my tongue. ‘That’s a billiard cue you’re holding, not a white stick. Stop trying to lay me down, will you? Look, if it makes you happy, we’ll play for five marks a game.’

He smiled slightly and flexed his shoulders.

‘Twenty points all right with you?’