My hotel is this way. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

Tredup has turned out the light, and lies down beside his wife. ‘Let me tell you something, Elise. We have two mayors here. The Oberbürgermeister is on the Right, and has no power, and is generally useless. The mayor is on the Left, and he’s also the chief of police. It’s him I’m going to be seeing tomorrow.’

‘I expect you know what you’re doing, Max,’ says his wife. ‘Just see that we get a little money into the house. Hans’s shoes need new soles, and Grete must have two new blouses.’

‘We have fifteen marks for now. But I won’t be bought for fifteen marks. Nor yet for one hundred. Five hundred is more my price.’

And with that they go to sleep.

V

Every morning at ten Tredup goes to the town hall, where he asks the office manager for public announcements to put in the advertising section of the Chronicle.

Today, after pushing two or three sheets of paper into his briefcase, he climbs the stairs from the ground floor to the first floor. He goes through a double door; a long white corridor with red doors lies ahead of him. He knows that somewhere hereabouts Mayor Gareis, the police chief of Altholm, is to be found.

He starts reading the names on the doors: market police, traffic police, criminal investigation department, deputy commissioner. There it is: mayor. But a red arrow points the visitor to the next door: mayor’s outer office. Visitors report here.

He didn’t think about there being an outer office! He will have to sit and wait there, other people will be sitting there too, one of them will recognize him, and Stuff will get to hear that Tredup, the advertising manager of the Right-wing Chronicle, has paid a call on the Leftist mayor.

Falteringly he turns back. He can’t risk his job, and the existence of the three people who depend on him.

At the top of the stairs, he changes his mind again. In the course of the night, five hundred marks have become a thousand. The police and public prosecutors pay out money like that pretty regularly. And a thousand marks seems to offer security, a decent living . . . maybe a little shop.

But he won’t do the outer office. He will have to risk it. And with a sudden jerk he opens the door of the mayor’s inner sanctum. But it’s a double door, and he opens the inner one much more gently.

He’s in luck. The mayor is alone, seated at his desk, telephoning. At the sound of the opening door, he turns his head to the incomer. He narrows his eyes a little in the effort to recognize him, then points him to the outer office.

Tredup pulls the door quietly shut after him, and remains where he is, leaning forward and alert.

Mayor Gareis continues to telephone.

Tredup has heard it said that the mayor is the tallest man in Altholm.