‘It’s a job,’ objected Lehnhoff. ‘Better a job in Germany than no job back in Holland.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ said Sergeant Stumm.

‘I don’t think I like your insinuation, Sergeant,’ said Lehnhoff.

‘Leave it, Lehnhoff,’ I said. ‘This isn’t the time or the place for a political argument. A man is dead, after all.’

Lehnhoff grunted and tapped the head with the toe of his shoe, which was enough to make me want to kick him off the platform.

‘Well, if someone did kill him, like you say, Herr Commissar, it’ll be another of them foreign workers that probably did it. You see if I’m wrong. It’s dog eat dog in these foreign-worker hostels.’

‘Don’t knock it,’ I said. ‘Dogs know the importance of getting a square meal now and again. And speaking for myself, if it’s a choice between fifty grammes of dog and a hundred grammes of nothing then I’ll eat the dog anytime.’

‘Not me,’ said Lehnhoff. ‘I draw the line at guinea pigs. So there’s no way I’d ever eat a dog.’

‘It’s one thing saying that, sir,’ said Sergeant Stumm. ‘But it’s another thing altogether trying to tell the difference. Maybe you haven’t heard, but the cops over at Zoo Station are having to put on night patrols in the zoo. On account of how poachers have been breaking in and stealing the animals. Apparently they just had their tapir taken.’

‘What’s a tapir?’ asked Wurth.

‘It looks a bit like pork,’ I said. ‘So I expect that’s what some unscrupulous butcher is calling it now.’

‘Good luck to him,’ said Sergeant Stumm.

‘You don’t mean that,’ said Lehnhoff.

‘A man needs more than a stirring speech by the Mahatma Propagandi to fill his stomach,’ I said.

‘Amen,’ said Sergeant Stumm.