Her shoulders were still slack. The defiance was over. The catharsis of the confessional had left her exhausted. She said almost without interest: "I joined their group when I was just out of college. They call it Phoenix. It was a foster-parent to me because my mother never got to the other side of the Weidendammer Bridge that night. A piece of shrapnel hit her. Then I began growing up, and two or three years ago I defected and left the group. Not suddenly – I just stopped going to that house. They found me and tried to make me go back, because I knew too much. I knew what people had left the Fuhrerbunker alive, and where some of them went. I know where Bormann is now. I refused to go back but I swore on – on something they keep there that I would never talk. Either they think I've talked, or there's a new man there, or a new policy, because there was the trolley-stop incident a month ago, and the car tonight."

I finished my drink. I was going.

"Why do we have such an urge to do something we know we mustn't?" she asked suddenly.

"It's our friend the id. Wants to drive wild, hates the brakes. But keep them on. If it gets difficult, talk to a tape and then burn it. Or talk to Jurgen. But don't talk to strangers any more. You don't know where they'll go when they leave here. If it's straight to the CIA Office or some anti-Nazi organisation Phoenix won't stage any more accidents – they'll be up here within the hour and you can't rely on Jurgen because he's not bullet-proof."

I moved for the door and the wolfhound was on its feet.

"Should I leave Berlin?" she asked wearily.

"It would be safer."

She opened the door for me. Our eyes met and I saw the struggle she was putting up for her pride's sake. She lost.