‘Yellow material.’

Ludtke nodded.

‘I might have guessed. Mind if I have one of those?’

‘Help yourself.’ He tossed the matches across the desk and watched as I fished one out and put it in the corner of my mouth. ‘I’m told they’re good for your throat.’

‘Are you worried about your health, Wilhelm?’

‘Isn’t everyone? That’s why we do what we’re told. In case we come down with a dose of the Gestapo.’

‘You mean like making sure Jews wear their yellow stars?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Oh sure, sure. And while I can see the obvious importance of a law like that, there’s still the matter of the dead Dutchman. In case you’d forgotten, he was stabbed six times.’

Ludtke shrugged. ‘If he was German it would be different, Bernie. But the Ogorzow case was a very expensive investigation for this department. We went way over budget. You’ve no idea how much it cost to catch that bastard. Undercover police officers, half the city’s rail workers interviewed, increased police presence at stations – the overtime we had to pay out was enormous. It really was a very difficult time for Kripo. To say nothing of the pressure we came under from the Propaganda Ministry. It’s hard catching anyone when the newspapers aren’t even allowed to write about a case.’

‘Geert Vranken was a rail worker,’ I said.

‘And you think the Ministry is going to be happy to learn that there’s another killer at work on the S-Bahn?’

‘This killer is different. As far as I can tell nobody raped him. And unless you count the train that drove over him, nobody tried to mutilate him either.’

‘But murder is murder, and frankly I know exactly what they’ll say. That there’s enough bad news around right now. In case you hadn’t noticed, Bernie, this city’s morale is already lower than a badger’s arse. Besides, we need those foreign workers. That’s what they’re going to tell me. The last thing we want is Germans thinking that there’s a problem with our guest workers.