lake. The water was busier than on the previous day.
A stiff breeze had encouraged the presence of a large number of small yachts, and their white sails covered the surface of the water like the wings of hundreds of moths.
I helped Six remove the green tarpaulin from the boat, and poured petrol into the tank while he connected the battery and started the engine. The slipper roared into life at the third time of asking, and the five-metre polished-wood hull strained at the mooring ropes, eager to be upriver. I threw Six the first line, and having untied the second I stepped quickly into the boat beside him.
Then he wrenched the wheel to one side, punched the throttle lever and we jerked forwards.
It was a powerful boat and as fast as anything that even the river-police might have had. We raced up the Havel towards Spandau, Six holding the white steering-wheel grimly, oblivious to the effect that the slipper's enormous wake was having on the other waterway craft. It slapped against the hulls of boats moored under trees or beside small jetties, bringing their irate owners out on deck to shake their fists and utter shouts that were lost in the noise of the slipper's big engine. We went east on to the Spree.
'I hope to God we're not too late,' shouted Six. He had quite recovered his former vigour, and stared resolutely ahead of him, the man of action, with only a slight frown on his face to give a clue to his anxiety.
'I'm usually an excellent judge of a man's character,' he said, as if by way of explanation, 'but if it's any consolation to you, Herr Gunther, I'm afraid I gravely underestimated you. I had not expected you to be as doggedly inquisitive. Frankly, I thought you'd do precisely what you were told. But then you're not the kind of man who takes kindly to be being told what to do, are you?'
'When you get a cat to catch the mice in your kitchen, you can't expect it to ignore the rats in the cellar.'
'I suppose not,' he said.
We continued east, up-river, past the Tiergarten and Museum Island. By the time we turned south towards Treptower Park and Kopenick, I had asked him what grudge his son-in-law had had against him. To my surprise he showed no reluctance to answer my question; nor did he affect the indignant, rose-tinted viewpoint that had characterized all his previous remarks concerning members of his family, living and dead.
'As well-acquainted with my personal affairs as you are, Herr Gunther, you probably don't need to be reminded that Lise is my second wife. I married my first wife, Lisa, in 1910, and the following year she became pregnant.
Unfortunately things went badly and our child was still-born. Not only that, but there was no possibility of her having another child. In the same hospital was an unmarried girl who had given birth to a healthy child at about the same time.
She had no way of looking after it, so my wife and I persuaded her to let us adopt her daughter. That was Grete. We never told her she was adopted while my wife was alive. But after she died, Grete discovered the truth, and set about trying to trace her real mother.
'By this time of course Grete was married to Paul, and was devoted to him. For his part, Paul was never worthy of her. I suspect he was rather more keen on my family name and money than he was on my daughter. But to everyone else they must have seemed like a perfectly happy couple.
'Well, all that changed overnight when Grete finally tracked down her real mother. The woman was a gypsy from Vienna, working in a Bierkeller on Potsdamer Platz. If it was a shock to Grete it was the end of the world to that little shit Paul. Something called racial impurity, whatever that amounts to, gypsies running the Jews a close second for unpopularity. Paul blamed me for not having informed Grete earlier. But when I first saw her I didn't see a gypsy child, but a beautiful healthy baby, and a young mother who was as keen as Lisa and I that we should adopt her and give her the best in life. Not that it would have mattered if she'd been a rabbi's daughter. We'd still have taken her. Well, you remember what it was like then, Herr Gunther. People didn't make distinctions like they do these days. We were all just Germans. Of course, Paul didn't see it that way. All he could think of was the threat Grete now posed to his career in the S S and the Party.' He laughed bitterly.
We came to Grnnau, home of the Berlin Regatta Club. On a large lake on the other side of some trees, a 2,000-metre Olympic rowing course had been marked out.
Above the noise of the slipper's engine could be heard the sound of a brass band, and a public-address system describing the afternoon's events.
'There was no reasoning with him. Naturally, I lost my temper with him, and called him and his beloved Fuhrer all sorts of names. After that we were enemies. There was nothing I could do for Grete. I watched his hate breaking her heart. I urged her to leave him, but she wouldn't. She refused to believe that he wouldn't learn to love her again. And so she stayed with him.'
'But meanwhile he set out to destroy you, his own father-in-law.'
'That's right,' said Six. 'While all the time he sat there in the comfortable home that my money had provided for them. If Grete did kill him as you say, then he certainly had it coming. If she hadn't done it I might have been tempted to have arranged it myself.'
'How was he going to finish you?' I asked. 'What evidence was there that was so compromising to you?'
The slipper reached the junction of Longer See and Seddinsee. Six throttled back and steered the boat south in the direction of the hilly peninsula that was Schm/ckwitz.
'Clearly your curiosity knows no bounds, Herr Gunther. But I'm sorry to disappoint you. I welcome your assistance, but I see no reason why I should answer all your questions.'
I shrugged. 'I don't suppose it matters much now,' I said.
The Grosse Zug was an inn on one of the two islands between the marshes of Kopenick and Schm/ckwitz. Less than a couple of hundred metres in length, and no more than fifty wide, the island was tightly packed with tall pine trees. Close to the water's edge there were more signs saying 'Private' and 'Keep Out' than on a fan-dancer's dressing-room door.
'What is this place?'
'This is the summer headquarters of the German Strength ring. They use it for their more secret meetings. You can see why, of course. It's so out of the way.'
He started to drive the boat round the island, looking for somewhere to moor. On the opposite side we found a small jetty, to which were tied several boats. Up a short grassy slope was a cluster of neatly painted boathouses, and beyond it the Grosse Zug Inn itself. I collected up a length of rope and jumped off the slipper on to the jetty. Six cut the engine.
'We'd best be careful how we approach the place,' he said, joining me on the jetty, and tying up the front of the boat. 'Some of these fellows are inclined to shoot first and ask questions later.'
'I know just how they feel,' I said.
We walked off the jetty and up the slope towards the boat-houses. Excepting the other boats, there was nothing to indicate that there was anyone else on the islet. But closer to the boat-houses, two armed men emerged from behind an upturned boat. Their faces wore expressions that were cool enough to cope with me telling them that I was carrying bubonic plague. It's the sort of confidence that only a sawn-off can give you.
'That's far enough,' said the taller of the two. 'This is private property. Who are you and what are doing here?' He didn't lift the gun from his forearm where it was cradled like a sleeping baby, but then he did not have to lift it very far to get off a shot. Six made the explanations.
'It's desperately important that I see Red.' He thumped his fist into the palm of his hand as he spoke. It made him seem rather melodramatic, I thought. 'My name is Hermann Six. I can assure you gentlemen he'll want to see me. But please hurry.'
They stood there shuffling uncertainly. 'The boss always tells us if he's expecting anyone. And he didn't say anything about you two.'
'Despite that, you can depend on it that there'll be hell to pay if he finds out you turned us away.'
Shotgun looked at his partner, who nodded and walked away towards the inn. He said: 'We'll wait here while we check it out.'
Wringing his hands nervously, Six called out after him: 'Please hurry. It's a matter of life or death.'
Shotgun grinned at that. I guessed he was used to matters of life and death where his boss was concerned. Six produced a cigarette and fed it nervously into his mouth. He snatched it out again without lighting it.
'Please,' he said to Shotgun. 'Are you holding a couple on the island, a man and a woman? The the '
'The Teichmnllers,' I said.
