A very tired and dishevelled Reinhard Lange regarded them without much interest.

‘Perhaps you’d care to tell me how these came to be in your possession?’

‘They’re mine,’ he shrugged. ‘I don’t deny it.’ He sighed and dropped his head on to his hands. ‘Look, I’ve signed your statement. What more do you want? I’ve cooperated, haven’t I?’

‘We’re nearly finished, Reinhard. There’s just a loose end or two I want tied up. Like who killed Klaus Hering.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You’ve got a short memory. He was blackmailing your mother with these letters which he stole from your lover, who also happened to be his employer. He thought she’d be better for the money, I guess. Well, to cut a long story short, your mother hired a private investigator to find out who was squeezing her. That person was me. This was before I went back to being a bull at the Alex. She’s a shrewd lady, your mother, Reinhard. Pity you didn’t inherit some of that from her. Anyway, she thought it possible that you and whoever was blackmailing her might be sexually involved. And so when I found out the name, she wanted you to decide what to do next. Of course she wasn’t to know that you’d already acquired a private investigator in the ugly shape of Rolf Vogelmann. Or at least, Otto Rahn had, using money you provided. Coincidentally, when Rahn was looking around for a business to buy into, he even wrote to me. We never had the pleasure of discussing his proposition, so it took me quite a while to remember his name. Anyway, that’s just by the by.

‘When your mother told you that Hering was blackmailing her, naturally you discussed the matter with Dr Kindermann, and he recommended dealing with the matter yourselves. You and Otto Rahn. After all, what’s one more wet-job when you’ve done so many?’

‘I never killed anyone, I told you that.’

‘But you went along with killing Hering, didn’t you? I expect you drove the car. Probably you even helped Kindermann string up Hering’s dead body and made it look like suicide.’

‘No, it’s not true.’

‘Wearing their SS uniforms, were they?’

He frowned and shook his head. ‘How could you know that?’

‘I found an SS cap badge sticking in the flesh of Hering’s palm. I’ll bet he put up quite a struggle. Tell me, did the man in the car put up much of a fight? The man wearing the eyepatch. The one watching Hering’s apartment. He had to be killed too, didn’t he? Just in case he identified you.’

‘No — ’