‘Better mind what you say about Orpo to Deubel, sir,’ said Becker. ‘He’s a friend of Dummy Daluege’s. They were in the same Stettin Freikorps regiment.’ The Freikorps were paramilitary organizations of ex-soldiers which had been formed after the war to destroy Bolshevism in Germany and to protect German borders from the encroachments of the Poles. Kurt ‘Dummy’ Daluege was the chief of Orpo.

‘Thanks, I read his file.’

‘He used to be a good bull. But these days he works an easy shift and then pushes off home. All Eberhard Deubel wants out of life is to live long enough to collect his pension and see his daughter grow up to marry the local bank manager.’

‘The Alex has got plenty like him,’ I said. ‘You’ve got children, haven’t you, Becker?’

‘A son, sir,’ he said proudly. ‘Norfried. He’s nearly two.’

‘Norfried, eh? That sounds German enough.’

‘My wife, sir. She’s very keen on this Aryan thing of Dr Rosenberg’s.’

‘And how does she feel about you working in Vice?’

‘We don’t talk much about what happens in my job. As far as she is concerned, I’m just a bull.’

‘So tell me about these sexual-deviant informers.’

‘While I was in Section M2, the Brothel Surveillance Squad, we only used one or two,’ he explained. ‘But Meisinger’s Queer Squad use them all the time. He depends on informers. A few years ago there was a homosexual organization called the Friendship League, with about 30,000 members. Well, Meisinger got hold of the entire list and still leans on a name now and then for information. He also has the confiscated subscription lists of several pornographic magazines, as well as the names of the publishers. We might try a couple of them, sir. Then there is Reichsführer Himmler’s ferris-wheel. It’s an electrically powered rotating card-index with thousands and thousands of names on it, sir. We could always see what came up on that.’

‘It sounds like something a gypsy fortune-teller would use.’

‘They say that Himmler’s keen on that shit.’

‘And what about a man who’s keen on nudging something? Where are all the bees in this city now that all the brothels have been closed down?’

‘Massage parlours. You want to give a girl some bird, you’ve got to let her rub your back first. Kuhn — he’s the boss of M2 — he doesn’t bother them much. You want to ask a few snappers if they’d had to massage any spinners lately, sir?’

‘It’s as good a place to start as any I can think of.’

‘We’ll need an E-warrant, a search for missing persons.’

‘Better go and get one, Becker.’