Just think of the riches we can find at the house of a wealthy Jewish businesswoman, even if the Gestapo must have picked up the odd item when they took away the husband!”

All at once Enno Kluge said yes. There was no more wavering, no more demurral. Now he couldn’t get round to Jablonski Strasse quickly enough. What changed his mind was neither the arguments advanced by Borkhausen, nor the prospect of a rich haul, but plain and simple hunger. He suddenly imagined Frau Rosenthal’s larder, and he remembered that Jews had always liked to eat well, and that he had probably never enjoyed anything so much in his life as a stuffed neck of goose that a Jewish clothier had treated him to once.

Suddenly he is thoroughly in the grip of hungry fantasies: he is convinced Frau Rosenthal will have a stuffed neck of goose in her larder. He can see the porcelain dish, the neck lying in congealed gravy, stuffed to bursting like a big fat sausage, and both ends tied with thread. He will take the dish and heat the thing up over the gas—nothing else is of any interest to him. Borkhausen can do whatever he wants; he doesn’t care. He will dunk bread in the rich, spicy gravy and he will eat the goose neck with his fingers, the juice running all down his wrists.

“Would you mind getting a move on, Emil, I’m in a hurry!”

“What’s the rush?” Borkhausen asks, but in fact he’s more than happy to get a move on, too. He’ll be only too glad when the thing is over and done with; it isn’t his line of work either. It’s not the police or the old Jewish lady he’s scared of—what’s going to happen to him for Aryanizing her property?—but the Persickes. They’re an unscrupulous bunch all right, and he wouldn’t put it past them to put one over on a freelance like himself. It was purely on account of the Persickes that he picked up this goofy Enno, he’ll be a witness, someone they don’t know, and that will cramp their style.

In Jablonski Strasse, everything went smoothly enough. It will have been about half past ten when they unlocked the front door with Borkhausen’s key. Then they listened in the stairwell, and when there was no sound, they switched on the stair light and pulled off their shoes, because, as Borkhausen said with a grin, “The property is entitled to peace and quiet.”

After the light clicked off, they tiptoed swiftly and silently up the stairs, and then everything went like clockwork. They didn’t make any beginners’ errors, like bumping into anything or dropping a shoe with a clatter, no, they tiptoed silently up four flights of stairs. So, that was a good bit of stair work, even though neither of them is a proper burglar and they’re both in a state of fair excitement, one over his stuffed neck of goose and the other over the booty and the Persickes.

The door to her apartment was something Borkhausen imagined would be fifty times harder than it proved: it was not even locked, merely closed. What an irresponsible woman, and as a Jewess she really should have known better than that! So the two of them slipped into the apartment, they couldn’t even say how, that’s how easy it was.

Now Borkhausen, bold as brass, switches on the light in the corridor. In fact, he’s all boldness now. “If the old bitch screams, I’ll smack her in the chops!” he announces, just like he did in the morning to Baldur Persicke. But she didn’t scream. So they took a relaxed gander round the small corridor first, which was fairly stuffed with furniture and boxes and cases. Well, the Rosenthals used to own a large apartment near their shop, and if you have to leave in a hurry and move into two rooms with bed and kitchen, then that’s bound to create a bit of clutter, isn’t it? Stands to reason.

Their fingers were itching to begin prying and poking and packing the loot away, but Borkhausen thought it would be sensible to find Rosenthal first and tie a hanky over her face so she wouldn’t make any trouble. The bedroom was so piled high they could hardly move, and they understood that there was so much plunder here that they wouldn’t be able to move it in ten nights—they could only try and pick the best stuff. In the other room, same story, and in the cloakroom as well. Only there’s no Rosenthal anywhere. The bed hasn’t been slept in. Borkhausen checks the kitchen and the toilet, but there’s no sign of the woman, and that’s a huge stroke of luck, because it saves them trouble and makes their work considerably easier.

Borkhausen goes back into the first room and starts digging around. He doesn’t even notice that his partner, Enno, has gone missing. Enno is standing in the larder, bitterly disappointed at not finding any stuffed neck of goose, just a half a loaf of bread and a couple of onions.