‘Oh God, help,’ Lange gurgled as Becker caught him by the bare ankle and started to drag him back. Twisting round he tried to kick himself free of Becker’s grip, but it was to no avail, and as Becker pulled so Lange bounced down the stairs on his fat behind. When he hit the floor Becker gripped at his face and stretched each cheek towards his ears.

‘When I say open the door, you open the fucking door, right?’ Then he put his whole hand over Lange’s face and banged his head hard on the stair. ‘You got that, queer?’ Lange protested loudly, and Becker caught hold of some of his hair and slapped him twice, hard across the face. ‘I said, have you got that, queer?’

‘Yes,’ he screamed.

‘That’s enough,’ I said pulling him by the shoulder. He stood up breathing heavily, and grinned at me.

‘You said a waltzer, sir.’

‘I’ll tell you when he needs some more of the same.’

Lange wiped his bleeding lip and inspected the blood that smeared the back of his hand. There were tears in his eyes but he still managed to summon up some indignation.

‘Look here,’ he yelled, ‘what the hell is this all about? What do you mean by barging in here like this?’

‘Tell him,’ I said.

Becker grabbed the collar of Lange’s silk dressing-gown and twisted it against his pudgy neck. ‘It’s a pink triangle for you, my fat little fellow,’ he said. ‘A pink triangle with bar if the letters to your bottom-stroking friend Kindermann are anything to go by.’

Lange wrenched Becker’s hand away from his neck and stared bitterly at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he hissed. ‘Pink triangle? What does that mean, for God’s sake?’

‘Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code,’ I said.

Becker quoted the section off by heart: ‘Any male who indulges in criminally indecent activities with another male, or who allows himself to participate in such activities, will be punished with gaol.’ He cuffed him playfully on the cheek with the backs of his fingers. ‘That means you’re under arrest, you fat butt-fucker.’

‘But it’s preposterous. I never wrote any letters to anyone. And I’m not a homosexual.’

‘You’re not a homosexual,’ Becker sneered, ‘and I don’t piss out of my prick.’ From his jacket pocket he produced the two letters I’d given him, and brandished them in front of Lange’s face. ‘And I suppose you wrote these to the tooth-fairy?’

Lange snatched at the letters and missed.

‘Bad manners,’ Becker said, cuffing him again, only harder.

‘Where did you get those?’

‘I gave them to him.’

Lange looked at me, and then looked again. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I know you. You’re Steininger. You were there tonight, at — ’ He stopped himself from saying where he’d seen me.