“Gypsy. Albanian. Chechen? Who knows. Who knows where the Balkan Route begins or where it ends. These days.”

Felix looked at his partner, and for the first time that he could remember, he couldn’t tell if Gebi was putting out some sly humour, or not. At least he hadn’t come up with the real slur, Die Tschuchen. If “nigger” was brought to Europe, and slapped on anyone from the Balkans, this would be it.

“Maybe I should have done him an emissions test?” Felix tried.

“See the smoke when he took off?”

“Now there’s a thought,” Gebhart murmured.

He turned to let his glare stay on a Mercedes that had braked hard. The radio came to life.

“Zentrale to Stefansdorf Ein.”

Korschak. By the book, always: never just Car One. Stefansdorf One, never Stefansdorf Two. It didn’t matter there was only one patrol car out at a time from the post, ever.

“Go ahead Zentrale.”

“Telephone call for you Gebi, you might want to consider it after your assignment. Local, not urgent. You want it, over?”

Gebhart frowned.

“Might as well, Zentrale. Over wait, give me a name first, and I’ll know.”

“Family Himmelfarb?”

“What about them? Over.”

“Will you be up his way today, he wants to know. Over.”

“What does that mean? A police matter?”

“He didn’t say. But you know him, his son, he said. Over.”

Gebhart hesitated.

“Look,” he said then. “I’ll phone him when we get back. Over?”

He shook his head as though bewildered, and replaced the mouthpiece. He sagged lower into the seat and looked out the side window. Felix stole a glance over. To see if there was any clue about what the message meant. There was none.

He drew into the lay-by that was in sight of a small scatter of older houses.

“Okay,” said Gebhart. He seemed to rouse himself from whatever had made him turn in on himself. He checked the laserpistole he had been holding and tugged the side of his green vest tighter.