‘It occurs to me that you’ve seen a lot more than just your doctor’s case notes, Reinhard. And Kindermann learnt his ethics with the Holy Inquisition.’

I turned back to the filing cabinet and fell silent as I came across another name I recognized. The name of a girl I had once wasted a couple of months trying to find. A girl who had once been important to me. I’ll admit that I was even in love with her. The job is like that sometimes. A person vanishes without trace, the world moves on, and you find a piece of information that at the right time would have cracked the case wide open. Aside of the obvious irritation you feel at remembering how wide of the mark you’d really been, mostly you learn to live with it. My business doesn’t exactly suit those who are disposed to be neat. Being a private investigator leaves you holding more loose ends than a blind carpet-weaver. All the same, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t admit to finding some satisfaction in tying them off. Yet this name, the name of the girl that Arthur Nebe had mentioned to me all those weeks ago when we met late one night in the ruins of the Reichstag, meant so much more than just satisfaction in finding a belated solution to an enigma. There are times when discovery has the force of revelation.

‘The bastard,’ said Lange, turning the pages of his own case notes.

‘I was thinking the same thing myself.’

‘“A neurotic effeminate”,’ he quoted. ‘Me. How could he think such a thing about me?’

I moved down to the next drawer, only half listening to what he was saying.

‘You tell me, he’s your friend.’

‘How could he say these things? I don’t believe it.’

‘Come on, Reinhard. You know how it is when you swim with the sharks. You’ve got to expect to get your balls bitten once in a while.’

‘I’ll kill him,’ he said, flinging the case notes across the office.

‘Not before I do,’ I said, finding Weisthor’s file at last. I slammed the drawer shut. ‘Right. I’ve got it. Now we can get out of this place.’

I was about to reach for the door-handle when a heavy revolver came through the door, followed closely by Lanz Kindermann.

‘Would you mind telling me what the hell’s going on here?’