Nina was already regretting her decision to come. The evening flight from JFK had been delayed, not taking off until the early hours of the morning, and when she’d called Macy on arriving in Germany, her daughter was still angry and petulant about being forced to stay at home. The knowledge that they still had to deal with the artefact’s seller, who she was certain would try to pull some con, did not improve her own grumpy mood. ‘Do I want to know what you were doing in Hamburg’s red-light district?’

‘Nothing I caught anything from, don’t worry,’ her husband replied with a grin. ‘It’s pretty much a squaddie rule when you’re in Germany. Come to Hamburg, go to the Reeperbahn, drink too much, ogle people, try not to pass out in a gutter and wake up with all your money gone. Hey, I was young,’ he added, seeing her disapproval.

‘I didn’t do anything like that when I was young.’

‘Maybe you should have. Might have made you more . . . adventurous.’ He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Nina felt her cheeks flush. ‘Eddie, we have company.’

‘He’s not listening.’ Cheng was consulting a map on his phone, only to become distracted as two young women wearing extremely short skirts and high heels trotted past. ‘Hey, Cheng! Close your mouth, you’re drooling.’

The Chinese student hurriedly snapped his jaw shut. ‘I was not! I was, uh . . .’

‘I’m guessing you haven’t seen anything like this in China,’ said Nina. The buildings along the Reeperbahn advertised their business with Teutonic bluntness. Most were dedicated to sex, all tastes and kinks and fetishes catered for, and the remainder provided sustenance and supplies to wide-eyed visitors.

‘I have to admit, no, Professor,’ said Cheng, forcing his eyes back to the phone.

‘So where are we going?’ Eddie asked.

‘He told me to come to an apartment off a street called Grobe Freiheit at seven o’clock.’

The Yorkshireman laughed. ‘That’s Große Freiheit. Pronounced like “grocer”.’

‘You know it?’ said Nina.

‘Yeah. Lots of boozers and nightclubs and theatres.’

‘Not the kind that do Shakespeare, I assume.’

‘Topless Shakespeare, maybe.’ He pointed west. ‘It’s along there.’

The trio started down the street. The Reeperbahn was switching from daytime mundanity to the excitement of the night – or the sleaze, depending on one’s point of view. Nina definitely veered towards the latter. Packs of young male tourists were heading for the bars to drink up the courage they needed to enter somewhere more exotic, older men in ones and twos moving purposefully towards whichever establishment catered to their evening’s desires. Female visitors were in the minority, and were either in groups for mutual reassurance, or tagging along uncomfortably with partners. The women who actually worked in the district, whatever their age and profession, all had similar expressions: a stony indifference that couldn’t quite be masked even behind the brightest fake smile.