Through her tears she tried a smile. ‘I have one,’ she said, and tugged a square of lace from out of her sleeve. Then she glanced over at my own handkerchief and laughed. ‘It does look as if you’d wrapped your sandwiches in it.’

After I’d helped to carry her purchases upstairs, I stood outside her door while she found her key. Opening it, she turned and smiled gracefully.

‘Thank you for helping, Kommissar,’ she said. ‘It really was very kind of you.’

‘It was nothing,’ I said, thinking nothing of the sort.

Not even an invitation in for a cup of coffee, I thought when I was sitting in the car once more. Lets me drive her all this way and not even invited inside.

But then there are lots of women like that, for whom men are just taxi-drivers they don’t have to tip.

The heavy scent of the lady’s Bajadi perfume was pulling quite a few funny faces at me. Some men aren’t affected by it at all, but a woman’s perfume smacks me right in the leather shorts. Arriving back at the Alex some twenty minutes later, I think I must have sniffed down every molecule of that woman’s fragrance like a vacuum cleaner.

I called a friend of mine who worked at Dorlands, the advertising agency. Alex Sievers was someone I knew from the war.

‘Alex. Are you still buying advertising space?’

‘For as long as the job doesn’t require one to have a brain.’

‘It’s always nice to talk to a man who enjoys his work.’

‘Fortunately I enjoy the money a whole lot better.’

It went on like that for another couple of minutes until I asked Alex if he had a copy of that morning’s Beobachter. I referred him to the page with Vogelmann’s ad.

‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘I can’t believe that there are people in your line of work who have finally staggered into the twentieth century.’

‘That advertisement has appeared at least twice a week for quite a few weeks now,’ I explained. ‘What’s a campaign like that cost?’

‘With that many insertions there’s bound to be some sort of discount. Listen, leave it with me. I know a couple of people on the Beobachter. I can probably find out for you.’

‘I’d appreciate it, Alex.’

‘You want to advertise yourself, maybe?’

‘Sorry, Alex, but this is a case.’

‘I get it. Spying on the competition, eh?’

‘Something like that.’