‘Looking at you, I’d say you were used to being disappointed.’

‘Perhaps. But I doubt my disappointment will even compare with Himmler’s.’

‘My life is in no danger from the Reichsfuhrer, I can assure you.’

‘I wouldn’t place too much reliance on your rank or your uniform if I were you, Hauptsturmfuhrer. You’ll shoot just as easily as Ernst Röhm and all those SA men did.’

‘I knew Röhm quite well,’ he said smoothly. ‘We were good friends. It may interest you to know that that’s a fact which is well-known to Himmler, with all that such a relationship implies.’

‘You’re saying he knows you’re a queer?’

‘Certainly. If I survived the Night of Long Knives, I think I can manage to cope with whatever inconvenience you’ve arranged for me, don’t you?’

‘The Reichsfuhrer will be pleased to read Lange’s letters, then. If only to confirm what he already knows. Never underestimate the importance to a policeman of confirming information. I dare say he knows all about Weisthor’s insanity as well, right?’

‘What was insanity ten years ago merely counts as a treatable nervous disorder today. Psychotherapy has come a long way in a short time. Do you seriously believe that Herr Weisthor can be the first senior SS officer to be treated? I’m a consultant at a special orthopaedic hospital at Hohenlychen, near Ravensbruck concentration camp, where many S S staff officers are treated for the prevailing euphemism that describes mental illness. You know, you surprise me. As a policeman you ought to know how skilled the Reich is in the practice of such convenient hypocrisies. Here you are hurrying to create a great big firework display for the Reichsfuhrer with a couple of rather damp little crackers. He will be disappointed.’

‘I like listening to you, Kindermann. I always like to see another man’s work. I bet you’re great with all those rich widows who bring their menstrual depressions to your fancy clinic. Tell me, for how many of them do you prescribe cocaine?’

‘Cocaine hydrochloride has always been used as a stimulant to combat the more extreme cases of depression.’

‘How do you stop them becoming addicted?’

‘It’s true there is always that risk. One has to be watchful for any sign of drug dependency. That’s my job.’ He paused. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Just curious, Herr Doktor. That’s my job.’

At Hohenwarhe, north of Magdeburg, we crossed the Elbe by a bridge, beyond which, on the right, could be seen the lights of the almost completed Rothensee Ship Elevator, designed to connect the Elbe with the Mittelland Canal some twenty metres above it. Soon we had passed into the next state of Niedersachsen, and at Helmstedt we stopped for a rest, and to pick up some petroleum.