‘I have made inquiries about you and I am informed that you offer a reliable service. I need you now for a couple of hours, for which I will pay you 200 Reichsmarks: in effect a week’s money.’ He laid his wallet on his knee and thumbed two blues onto his trouser-leg. This couldn’t have been easy, since he had only one arm. ‘And afterwards Ulrich will drive you home.’

I took the notes. ‘Hell,’ I said, ‘I was only going to go to bed and sleep. I can do that anytime.’ I ducked my head and stepped into the car. ‘Let’s go, Ulrich.’

The door slammed and Ulrich climbed into the driver’s seat, with Freshface alongside of him. We headed west.

‘Where are we going?’ I said.

‘All in good time, Herr Gunther,’ he said. ‘Help yourself to a drink, or a cigarette.’ He flipped open a cocktail cabinet which looked as though it had been salvaged from the Titanic and produced a cigarette box. ‘These are American.’

I said yes to the smoke but no to the drink: when people are as ready to part with 200 marks as Dr Schemm had been, it pays to keep your wits about you.

‘Would you be so kind as to light me, please?’ said Schemm, fitting a cigarette between his lips. ‘Matches are the one thing I cannot manage. I lost my arm with Ludendorff at the capture of the fortress of Liege. Did you see any active service?’ The voice was fastidious, suave even: soft and slow, with just a hint of cruelty. The sort of voice, I thought, that could lead you into incriminating yourself quite nicely, thank you. The sort of voice that would have done well for its owner had he worked for the Gestapo. I lit our cigarettes and settled back into the Mercedes’s big seat.

‘Yes, I was in Turkey.’ Christ, there were so many people taking an interest in my war record all of a sudden, that I wondered if I hadn’t better apply for an Old Comrades Badge. I looked out of the window and saw that we were driving towards the Grunewald, an area of forest that lies on the west side of the city, near the River Havel.