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As usual on those rare occasions when she arrived earlier than the person she was meeting, Effi remembered all the times she had kept people waiting, and she resolved to do better in future. It never worked, of course.

She was almost ready to admit defeat when Eva finally arrived, out of breath and full of apologies. With a few drops of rain in the air, they took a table inside, and ordered coffees from a waitress who looked about fourteen. These days nearly everyone in Berlin seemed either too young or too old.

Eva seemed more nervous than she had at the funeral, and kept glancing at the doorway to the street. ‘A man came to see me,’ she said, as if in explanation.

‘Who?’ Effi asked. ‘What did he want?’

‘He never gave me his name, and I was too agitated to ask. He implied he was a friend of the family-Sonja’s family, I mean. But he didn’t actually say so.’

‘What did he say?’

‘That I was upsetting the family.’

‘How? What have you been doing?’

Eva stole another glance at the door. ‘Just talking to people, asking questions.’

‘Who?’

‘Oh, colleagues. I mean, I haven’t spoken to the newspapers, or anything like that.’

Effi digested this for a few moments. ‘What could you tell the newspapers, Eva? What do you know?’

‘Well, nothing much. Nothing definite anyway. But I was with her, a few days before she died.’

‘Were you in a relationship?’

Eva smiled sadly. ‘Not then. We were for a short time. Last year. Sonja was … well, she wasn’t really a lesbian. She was fed up with men, and she was willing to give it a try. That’s what she told me-almost word for word. And she did, but it didn’t feel right. Not to her.’

But it did to you, Effi surmised.

‘We stayed friends,’ Eva went on, ‘and we used to see each other every few weeks, usually somewhere like this, but she couldn’t get a babysitter that evening and so she invited me round to her apartment. And that’s when I overhead the telephone call. Someone-I don’t know who-was trying to get her to do something, and she kept trying to refuse. But whoever it was wouldn’t take no for an answer, and eventually she agreed. But I could see she was frightened, and she wouldn’t talk about it, which wasn’t like her.’

A tear was rolling down Eva’s cheek.

‘Have you told all this to anyone else?’

‘I went to the police, and spoke to a kriminalinspecktor. And he wasn’t unsympathetic. Women like me usually get very short shrift from men in uniforms-somehow they know-but this one promised to look into it. He warned me not to expect too much, which seemed fair enough. Since I didn’t have a name for the caller, or any idea what the call was about, I hadn’t really given him anywhere to start.

‘That was before the funeral. I went back to see him last Wednesday, and he more or less fobbed me off. He said he’d looked into it, and that there was nothing to suggest foul play. Which might have satisfied me, if he’d seemed like the same man I’d seen earlier. But he wasn’t. He was more aggressive and more defensive, if you know what I mean, as if dealing with me was something he resented having to do.’

‘As if it made him feel guilty?’

‘Perhaps. But maybe I was just imagining it. I mean, he was right the first time-I hadn’t given him anything, not really. And I had more or less decided to let it go, when this other man came to see me.’

‘A German, right?’

‘Well, he wasn’t Russian. And he wasn’t nasty or anything. But after he’d gone, I felt-I don’t know-I felt as if I’d been threatened, even though I hadn’t.’

Effi remembered having the same feeling after meeting the man from the Propaganda Department. And though Eva mightn’t actually know anything, someone might fear that Sonja had confided in her. But what about? And what could it matter if Sonja had killed herself? Volker Heldt had no doubts about that, and it stretched credulity to imagine him as a creature of the Russians. And even if there was something behind all this-which still seemed far from certain-there seemed no point in pursuing the matter. They couldn’t bring Sonja back, and in the unlikely event that they uncovered evidence of a crime, the likeliest sufferers would be themselves.

But how could she convince Eva of that?

‘I asked a friend-someone with access to the Russians-to see what he could find out,’ Effi said. ‘Discreetly, of course. And maybe he’ll hear something. But for the moment I really think you should let this go. Think about it, Eva. If you’re wrong, and the call you overheard had nothing to do with Sonja’s death, then making a fuss is going to hurt and anger others who loved her. And maybe that’s all the unknown man was trying to tell you. If you’re right, and there is something terrible we don’t know about, then someone might decide to really shut you up. Either way, you’ll be the loser.’

‘I know,’ Eva said, looking utterly miserable.

‘So you’ll let it alone.’

‘Yes, yes, I will. Thank you for talking to me.’

‘It’s good to see you.’

‘I’m usually better than this. But Effi, you will let me know if your friend finds anything out.’

‘Of course,’ Effi agreed, with more conviction than she felt. ‘But I’m not really expecting him to.’

They exchanged industry small talk for a few minutes, and then went their separate ways.

Walking back to her flat, Effi felt depressed by the conversation. She wasn’t convinced that there was anything suspicious about Sonja Strehl’s death, but the elements of Eva’s story-the threats on the phone, the resentful policeman, the nameless visitor who might or might be who he said he was-all seemed depressingly characteristic of the current situation.

Earlier that morning Effi had attended a farewell gathering at Charlottenburg Station. Another actor she had had known since pre-War days had been offered a part in a Hollywood movie, and had decided to take it. Two years earlier, Effi had heard the same woman scorning those who abandoned Berlin, ‘the city where real films are made’. But she, like so many others, had been worn down by the occupiers and their endless machinations against each other. It was a world in which Berliners, high and low, could only function as extras.

Watching the train steam out towards the West, Effi had felt more envious than she expected. In 1945 Russell had persuaded the Soviets to get his whole family out the city, but even then, with the streets on fire and the Russians raping anything female that moved, she had felt a strange reluctance to leave. She wasn’t sure she felt that now.

Effi wasn’t looking forward to the conversation, but after supper that evening seemed as good a time as any. ‘Before you go to bed,’ she told Rosa, once the wireless programme was over, ‘we need to have a talk.’

Rosa looked pleased. She had seemed a bit withdrawn since Effi picked her up from Zarah’s, and it wasn’t the response that Effi expected.

‘The other morning, when you were at school, I had a look through your drawing book. There were some I hadn’t seen before. Of your friends.’

‘What did you think?’ Rosa asked, clearly oblivious to the possibility that something might be wrong.

Which was encouraging. ‘I think they’re wonderful,’ Effi said, opening the book. ‘But I wanted to ask you about one of them.’ She found the drawing in question. ‘This one. What are these two doing?’

‘You know,’ Rosa said with a slight giggle.

‘I think I do, but you tell me.’

‘They’re special friends. Like you and Daddy. They touch each other a lot. Sometimes with their clothes off.’

‘And did they ask you to draw them touching each other like that?’

‘Oh no. They didn’t even know I was there. I found them like that, but they didn’t see me.’

‘I see. But why did you want to draw them?’