Shotgun's grin disappeared under a whole pantomine of dumb. 'I don't know nothing,' he said dully.
We kept looking anxiously at the inn. It was a two-storey affair, white-painted with neat, black shutters, a windowbox full of geraniums and a high mansard roof. As we watched, smoke started to come out of the chimney, and when the door finally opened I half expected an old woman to come out carrying a tray of gingerbread. Shotgun's pitman beckoned us forward.
We moved Indian-file through the door, with Shotgun bringing up the rear. The two stumpy barrels gave me an itch in the back of my neck: if you have ever seen someone shot with a sawn-off at close range, you would know why. There was a small hallway with a couple of hatstands, only nobody had bothered to check his hat. Beyond that was a small room, where somebody was playing the piano like he had a couple of fingers missing. At the far end there was a round bar and some stools. Behind it were lots of sports trophies and I wondered who had won them and why. The Most Murders in One Year perhaps, or The Cleanest Knockout With an India Rubber I had a nominee for that award myself if I could find him. But probably they had just bought them to make the place look more like what it was supposed to be the headquarters of an ex-convicts' welfare association.
Shotgun's partner grunted. 'This way,' he said, and led us towards a door beside the bar.
Through the door the room was like an office. A brass lamp hung from one of the beams on the ceiling. There was a long walnut chaise-longue in the corner by the window, and next to it, a big bronze of a naked girl, the sort that looks as though the model must have had a bad accident with a circular saw. There was more art on the panelled walls, but of the sort that normally you only find in the pages of midwives' textbooks.
Red Dieter, his black shirt-sleeves rolled up, and his collar off, stood up from the green-leather sofa and flicked his cigarette into the fire. Glancing first at Six and then at me, he looked uncertain as to whether he ought to look welcoming or worried. He didn't get time to make a choice. Six stepped forwards, and caught him by the throat.
'For God's sake what have you done with her?' From a corner of the room another man came to my assistance, and each of us taking one of the old man's arms, we pulled him off.
'Hold up, hold up,' yelled Red. He straightened his jacket and tried to control his natural indignation. Then he glanced around his person, as if to check that his dignity was still intact.
Six continued to shout. 'My daughter, what have you done with my daughter?'
The gangster frowned and looked quizzically at me. 'What's he fucking talking about?'
'The two people your boys snatched from the beach house yesterday,' I said urgently. 'What have you done with them? Look, there's no time for an explanation now, but the girl is his daughter.'
He looked incredulous. 'You mean, she's not dead after all?' he said.
'Come on, man,' I said.
Red swore, his face darkened like dying gaslight, his lips quivering like he had just chewed on broken glass. A thin, blue vein stood off his square forehead like a piece of ivy on a brick wall. He pointed at Six.
'Keep him here,' he growled. Red shouldered his way through the men outside like an angry wrestler. 'If this is one of your tricks, Gunther, I'll personally fillet your fucking nose.'
'I'm not that stupid. But as it happens, there is one thing that's puzzling me.'
At the front door Red stopped and glared at me. His face was the colour of blood, almost purple with rage. 'And what's that?'
'I had a girl working with me. Name of Inge Lorenz. She disappeared from the area of the beach house in Wannsee not long before your boys tapped me on the head.'
'So why ask me?'
'You've already kidnapped two people, so a third along the way might not be too much for your conscience to bear.'
Red almost spat in my face. 'What's a fucking conscience, then?' he said, and carried on through the door.
Outside the inn I hurried after him in the direction of one of the boathouses. A man came out, buttoning up his flies. Misinterpreting his boss's purposeful stride, he grinned.
'You come to give her one as well, boss?'
Red drew level with the man, looked blankly at him for a second, and then punched him hard in the stomach. 'Shut your stupid mouth,' he roared, and kicked his way through the boat-house door. I stepped over the man's gasping body and followed him inside.
I saw a long rack on which were laid several eight-oar boats, and tied to it was a man stripped to the waist. His head hung down, and there were numerous burns on his neck and shoulders. I guessed that it was HaupthSndler, although as I came closer I could see that his face was so badly contused as to be unrecognizable. Two men stood idly by, paying no attention to their captive.
They were both smoking cigarettes, and one of them wore a set of brass knuckles.
'Where's the fucking girl?' screamed Red. One of Haupthandler's torturers jabbed a thumb across his shoulder.
'Next door, with my brother.'
'Hey, boss,' said the other man. 'This coat still won't talk. Do you want us to work on him some more?'
'Leave the poor bastard alone,' he growled. 'He knows nothing.'
It was almost dark in the adjoining boathouse, and it took several seconds for our eyes to become accustomed to the gloom.
'Franz. Where the fuck are you?' We heard a soft groan, and the slap of flesh against flesh. Then we saw them: an enormous figure of a man, his trousers round his ankles, bent over the silent and naked body of Hermann Six's daughter, tied face down over an upturned boat.
'Get away from her, you big ugly bastard,' yelled Red.
The man, who was the size of a luggage locker, made no move to obey the order, not even when it was repeated at greater volume and at closer range. Eyes shut, his shoe-box of a head lying back on the parapet that was his shoulders, his enormous penis squeezing in and out of Grete Pfarr's anus almost convulsively, his knees bent like a man whose horse had escaped from underneath him, Franz stood his ground.
Red punched him hard on the side of the head. He might as well have been hitting a locomotive. The very next second he pulled out a gun and almost casually blew his man's brains out.
Franz dropped cross-legged to the ground, a collapsing chimney of a man, his head spurting a smoke-plume of burgundy, his still erect penis leaning to one side like the mainmast of a ship that has crashed onto the rocks.
Red pushed the body to one side with the toe of his shoe as I started to untie Grete. Several times he glanced awkwardly at the stripes that had been cut deep onto her buttocks and thighs with a short whip. Her skin was cold, and she smelt strongly of semen. There was no telling how many times she had been raped.
'Fuck, look at the state of her,' groaned Red, shaking his head. 'How can I let Six see her like this?'
'Let's hope she's alive,' I said, taking off my coat, and spreading it on the ground.
We laid her down, and I pressed my ear to her naked breast. There was a heartbeat, but I guessed that she was in deep shock.
'Is she going to be all right?' Red sounded naive, like a schoolboy asking about his pet rabbit. I looked up at him and saw that he was still holding the gun in his hand.
Summoned by the shot, several German Strength men were standing awkwardly at the back of the boathouse. I heard one of them say, 'He killed Franz'; and then another said, 'There was no call to do it,' and I knew we were going to have trouble. Red knew it too. He turned and faced them.
'The girl is Six's daughter. You all know Six. He's a rich and powerful man. I told Franz to leave her alone but he wouldn't listen. She couldn't have taken any more. He'd have killed her. She's only just alive now.'
'You didn't have to shoot Franz,' said a voice.
'Yeah,' said another. 'You could have slugged him.'
'What?' Red's tone was incredulous. 'His head was thicker than the oak on a nunnery door.'
'Not now it isn't.'
Red bent down beside me. With one eye on his men he murmured, 'You got a lighter?'
'Yes,' I said. 'Look, we don't stand a chance in here, nor does she. We've got to get to a boat.'
'What about Six?'
I buttoned the coat over Grete's naked body, and gathered her up in my arms. 'He can take his
