ask. Don't be shy.' He leant back in his chair and from the pocket of his dirty grey waistcoat he produced a snuff box which he opened with a flick of his dirty thumbnail. He helped himself to a pinch, an indulgence which was effected with as much offence to the ear as any of the printed matter that might have been available was to the eye.
In close but poorly photographed gynaecological detail, the magazine I was looking at was partly given over to text that was designed to strain the fly-buttons. If it was to be believed, young German nurses copulated with no more thought than the average alley-cat.
Becker tossed his magazine on to the floor and picked up another.' The Virgin's Wedding Night,' he read.
'Not your sort of thing, Herr Becker,' Helmut said.
'The Story of a Dildo?'
'That one's not at all bad.'
'Raped on the U-Bahn.'
'Ah, now that is good. There is a girl in that one with the juiciest plum I've ever seen.'
'And you've seen a few, haven't you, Helmut?'
The man smiled modestly, and looked over Becker's shoulder as he gave the photographs close attention.
'Rather a nice girl-next-door type, don't you think?'
Becker snorted. 'If you happen to live next door to a fucking dog kennel.'
'Oh, very good,' Helmut laughed, and started to clean his monocle. As he did so, a long and extremely grey length of his lank brown hair disengaged itself from a poorly disguised bald-patch, like a quilt slipping off a bed, and dangled ridiculously beside one of his transparent red ears.
'We're looking for a man who likes mutilating young girls,' I said. 'Would you have anything catering for that sort of pervert?'
Helmut smiled and shook his head sadly. 'No, sir, I'm afraid not. We don't much care to deal for the sadistic end of the market. We leave the whipping and bestiality to others.'
'Like hell you do,' Becker sneered.
I tried the filing cabinet, which was locked.
'What's in here?'
'A few papers, sir. The petty-cash box. The account books, that sort of thing.
Nothing to interest you, I think.'
'Open it.'
'Really, sir, there's nothing of any interest ' The words dried in his mouth as he saw the cigarette lighter in my hand. I thumbed the bezel and held it underneath the magazine I'd been reading. It burned with a slow blue flame.
'Becker. How much would you say this magazine was?'
'Oh, they're expensive, sir. At least ten Reichsmarks each.'
'There must be a couple of thousands' worth of stock in this rat-hole.'
'Easily. Be a shame if there was a fire.'
'I hope he's insured.'
'You want to see inside the cabinet?' said Helmut. 'You only had to ask.' He handed Becker the key as I dropped the blazing magazine harmlessly into the metal wastepaper bin.
There was nothing in the top drawer besides a cash box, but in the bottom drawer was another pile of pornographic magazines. Becker picked one up and turned back the plain front cover.
'Virgin Sacrifice,' he said, reading the title page. 'Take a look at this, sir.'
He showed me a series of photographs depicting the degradation and punishment of a girl, who looked to be of high-school age, by an old and ugly man wearing an ill-fitting toupee. The weals his cane had left on her bare backside seemed very real indeed.
'Nasty,' I said.
'You understand, I am merely the distributor,' Helmut said, blowing his nose on a filthy handkerchief, 'not the manufacturer.'
One photograph was particularly interesting. In it the naked girl was bound hand and foot, and lying on a church altar like a human sacrifice. Her vagina had been penetrated with an enormous cucumber. Becker looked fiercely at Helmut.
'But you know who produced it, don't you?' Helmut remained silent only until Becker grabbed him by the throat and started to slap him across the mouth.
'Please don't hit me.'
'You're probably enjoying it, you ugly little pervert,' he snarled, wanning to his work. 'Come on, talk to me, or you'll talk to this.' He snatched a short rubber truncheon from his pocket, and pressed it against Helmut's face.
'It was Poliza,' shouted Helmut. Becker squeezed his face.
'Say again?'
Theodor Poliza. He's a photographer. He has a studio on Schiffbauerdamm, next to the Comedy Theatre. He's the one you want.'
'If you're lying to us, Helmut,' said Becker, grinding the rubber against Helmut's cheek, 'we'll be back. And we'll not only set fire to your stock, but you with it. I hope you've got that.' He pushed him away.
Helmut dabbed at his bleeding mouth with the handkerchief, 'Yes, sir,' he said, 'I understand.'
When we were outside again I spat into the gutter.
'Gives you a nasty taste in the mouth, doesn't it, sir? Makes me glad I didn't have a daughter, really it does.'
I'd like to have said that I agreed with him there. Only I didn't.
We drove north.
What a city it was for its public buildings, as immense as grey granite mountains. They built them big just to remind you of the importance of the state and the comparative insignificance of the individual. That just shows you how this whole business of National Socialism got started. It's hard not to be overawed by a government, any government, that is accommodated in such grand buildings. And the long wide avenues that ran straight from one district to another seemed to have been made for nothing else but columns of marching soldiers.
Quickly recovering my stomach I told Becker to stop the car at a cooked-meat shop on Friedrichstrasse and bought us both a plate of lentil soup. Standing at one of the little counters, we watched Berlin housewives lining up to buy their sausage, which lay coiled on the long marble counter like the rusted springs from some enormous motor car, or grew off the tiled walls in great bunches, like overripe bananas.
Becker may have been married, but he hadn't lost his eye for the ladies, passing some sort of nearly obscene comment about most of the women who came into the shop while we were there. And it hadn't escaped my attention that he'd helped himself to a couple of pornographic magazines. How could it have? He didn't try to hide them. Slap a man's face, make his mouth bleed, threaten him with an india rubber, call him a filthy degenerate and then help yourself to some of his dirty books that's what being in Kripo was all about.
We went back to the car.
'Do you know this Poliza character?' I said.
'We've met,' he said. 'What can I tell you about him except that he's shit on your shoe?'
The Comedy Theatre on Schiffbauerdamm was on the north side of the Spree, a tower-topped relic ornamented with alabaster tritons, dolphins and assorted naked nymphs, and Poliza's studio was in a basement nearby.
We went down some stairs and into a long alleyway. Outside the door to Poliza's studio we were met by a man wearing a cream-coloured blazer, a pair of green trousers, a cravat of lime silk and a red carnation. No amount of care or expense had been spared with his appearance, but the overall effect was so lacking in taste that he looked like a gypsy grave.
Poliza took one look at us and decided that we weren't there selling vacuum-cleaners. He wasn't much of a runner. His bottom was too big, his legs were too short and his lungs were probably too hard. But by the time we realized what was happening he was nearly ten metres down the alley.
'You bastard,' muttered Becker.
The voice of logic must have told Poliza he was being stupid, that Becker and I were easily capable of catching him, but it was probably so hoarsened by fear that it sounded as disquietingly unattractive as we ourselves
