More predictable.’

‘Herr Kalübbe, do you really think something could happen?’

‘Don’t talk rot. Of course nothing’s going to happen.’

The younger man reaches into his back pocket. ‘At least I’ve got my pistol with me.’

The older man suddenly stops dead, waves his arms furiously, and his face goes purple. ‘You idiot, you! You blasted idiot!’

His rage deepens. He throws his hat and coat down on the road, and the briefcase he was carrying under his raincoat.

‘All right! Go on! Do your own thing! What insane stupidity! And a hothead like that . . .’ He is incapable of going on.

The younger man has turned pale, whether from indignation, anger or shock. But he is at least able to master himself. ‘Herr Kalübbe, please, what was it I said to annoy you like that?’

‘If I so much as hear the words “At least I’ve got my pistol with me”! You propose to go among farmers with your pistol? I have a wife and children.’

‘But this morning the revenue councillor briefed me about the use of arms.’

Kalübbe is dismissive. ‘Oh, him! Sits at his desk all day. Knows nothing but paper. He should come out with me on an actual attachment one day, to Poseritz or Dülmen or, why not, Gramzow, today . . . He would soon stop giving briefings!’

Kalübbe grins sneeringly at the thought of the revenue councillor accompanying him on one of his attachment trips.

Suddenly he laughs. ‘Here, let me show you something.’ He pulls his pistol out of his own back pocket, aims it at his colleague.

‘What are you doing? Put that away!’ the younger man shouts, and jumps to the side.

Kalübbe pulls the trigger. ‘You see—nothing! It’s not loaded. That’s what I think of your sort of protection.’

He puts his pistol away. ‘And now give me yours.’ He pulls the barrel back with a jerk and ejects one bullet after another. The young man picks them up in silence. ‘Put them in your waistcoat pocket, and hand them back to the revenue councillor tonight. That’s my briefing on self-defence, Thiel.’

Thiel has also picked up stick and coat and briefcase, and hands them all silently to his colleague. They walk on. Kalübbe looks across meadows that are yellow with crowfoot, or whitish-rose with cardamine. ‘Don’t take it amiss, Thiel. Here, shake hands, no hard feelings.—That’s right. All of you cooped up in the revenue building, you’ve got no idea of what it means to be working out here.

‘I was pleased when I became a bailiff. Not just for the per diems and travel allowances, which I can really use, with a wife and three little ones. But also for being out here, on a spring day, when everything is green and fresh. Not just stone.