It was because I was a qualified typesetter, and they needed them.’

‘The Baltic theatre was the best,’ the other said pensively. ‘My God! Being master in a foreign land! Not having to pay any regard to the civilian population. And the girls!’

‘Come off it! Stories like that, and girls!’

‘I travel,’ said Georg Henning calmly, ‘for a Berlin manufacturer of milking machines and centrifuges. There’s not a woman that remembers me.’

‘Do you not drink?’

‘I never get drunk.’

‘That’s all right then.’

They walk on in silence.

‘I don’t know what your plan is,’ Georg Henning begins this time, ‘but I have here a genuine police ID with photograph. And a badge as well.’

He flips back the lapel of his summer coat and reveals a police badge.

‘No, that won’t work. Tredup will know all the local cops. And if it goes wrong, there’ll be a huge fuss. That would be good for later on. I think what we use for now is money.’

‘Whatever you say, comrade,’ says the lad, and tips his hat. That gives Stuff a nice warm feeling inside. He walks faster, and looks enterprisingly at the low two-storey cottages.

‘It’s the next corner,’ says Henning. ‘Facing the back. We just need to climb over the fence.’

‘You know what you’re about.’

‘I’ve been on his trail for the past five days. But he’s cagey. Doesn’t go into bars, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, nothing with girls.’

‘He’s got no money.’

‘Exactly. Those are the hardest cases.’

‘Or maybe the easiest.’

‘Not him.’

They climb quietly over a fence, cut around a barn, and the little yard, with gardens on two sides of it, is in front of them.

There’s a light on in one curtained window. ‘That’s where he lives. Let’s take a look.’

They try to look inside. ‘No, nothing? Why is his light still on? Why isn’t he asleep yet, it’s one in the morning?—Wait a minute. You stand aside, so that he doesn’t see you right away. I’m going to knock on the window.’

Stuff knocks softly.

No sooner has the sound died away than a shadow falls across the curtain, as though the man within had been waiting for the knock.

‘We’re not going to take him by surprise,’ murmurs Stuff, and his mate pats him on the shoulder in agreement.

The curtain is pulled aside, the window opens, and a dark head asks quietly: ‘Yes? Who is it?’

‘It’s me, Stuff. Can I talk to you, Tredup?’

‘No reason why not. If it’s not too humble for you inside. Come in, I’ll open the door.’

The window closes, and the curtain is pushed across again.

‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ asks Henning.

‘Of course. He’s not someone you stand on ceremony with.’

The door on to the yard opens quietly. Tredup stands in the doorway. ‘Come on in, Stuff. Oh, there’s two of you? Well, welcome, the pair of you.’

It’s not a big room that they enter from the yard. On a dresser is a shaded paraffin lamp, lighting piles of envelopes, an address book, ink and a pen. Along the walls are two beds, with shapes in them.