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Gin and tonic at ten in the morning! This was real Bohemianism. Poor old Debby. She thought two Baby-chams and a bag of pork scratchings were the first steps on the road to becoming an absinthe drinker. His mother too. If he’d suggested anything more extreme than a glass of sherry on Christmas morning she’d have thought he was the Antichrist. How far he had come.

By 1944 Peter Baldung will be a trusted high-flyer at Buchenwald, an intimate friend of Frau Use Koch, wife of the commandant there, also known as the Bitch of Buchenwald. Peter will learn to put up with her tantrums, her hysterical whims, and will aid her in her new hobby of making lampshades from human skin. He will seek out for her skin that is young, healthy, unblemished by age or disease. But the first time he offers her a skin that is smooth, clear but also embellished with a tattoo of a matador, she is beside herself with delight. She is thrilled beyond all reason.

But in 1935 Peter is merely part of the retinue that accompanies Adolf Hitler to a race meeting at Avus, along with Jacob Werlin who is now Hitler’s official adviser on motoring matters. Werlin and Hitler have had no chance to talk, indeed Hitler has not been able to speak to anyone, having lost his voice after some intensive oratory. But Hitler is keen to know the latest details of Dr Porsche’s developing Type 30. They slip into the garden of a local Reichskanzler and Hitler summons Peter. He commands him to turn around and he uses Peter’s broad black, uniformed back as a writing desk. On a piece of paper Hitler jots down urgent questions about the project. How many horsepower has the engine? Air-cooled? Weight of car? Is the test model ready?

Before Ishmael could say, ‘What about my laundry?’, Howard was out of the door. Politely, Ishmael followed. He offered Howard a lift in Enlightenment. He declined.

‘I’m afraid I have to be discreet,’ he said.

Ishmael shrugged. He had no idea what Howard was talking about.

Howard’s flat was, Ishmael supposed, actually quite nice. To be honest, it wasn’t really to his taste. It seemed a bit middle class. It smacked too much of materialism. He knew that was a terrible thing to think about anyone but he would have had to say what he thought.

There was a rattan three-piece suite and a nest of rattan tables with glass tops. There were lots of art deco bits and pieces — lamps in the shape of boy shepherds, a clock with an enamel sunset, and a cocktail cabinet with carved fauns for legs. There were more mirrors on the walls than anyone could possibly find any use for, art books were spread around conspicuously, and there was a massive collection of videotapes.

Howard mixed a potent gin and tonic.

Werlin answers Hitler as best as he can. Peter listens intently to it all even though he cannot know what questions are being asked, but above all he feels proud to be of such a direct use to the Führer.

Ishmael was sitting in a rattan chair looking out of the window on to a patch of communal lawn when Howard drew the curtains.

‘Too, too bright,’ he said.

Ishmael was about to encourage him to let the sun shine in, but Howard said, ‘Do you like this table?’

He pointed at the largest of the glass-topped tables. Ishmael didn’t like it especially, but he saw no reason to be hurtful.

‘It’s fine,’ he said.

‘It’s my very favourite,’ Howard said, chuckling. ‘If this table could talk…’

By now Ishmael was convinced that Howard was raving. He just wanted to get out of there and retrieve his laundry. Oh, Howard was one of God’s creatures and all that, unique and special and worthy of respect, but Ishmael felt Howard’s path to spiritual redemption might be a long one, and on this occasion at least he wasn’t offering himself as a guide.

‘Thanks for the drink but I’d really better be…’

‘Oh no you don’t. Just you wait here.’

Howard rushed out of the room. He was trembling and sweating. You had to feel sorry for the poor chap. A middle-aged man, living alone, probably his wife had died or had left him, it was bound to make you a bit inward-looking and weird. He was probably just lonely. He shouldn’t be ashamed to go to one of those agencies and meet a good woman to keep him company in his autumnal years. Ishmael thought he’d find a way of suggesting this when Howard returned.

In early 1937 Haupt Sturmf¨hrer Albert Liese is recruiting members of the SS to form a large team of drivers to test Dr Porsche’s latest prototype, the car now designated the Kraft-durch-Freudewagen. Since the Avus episode, which is known to and envied by his fellow-soldiers, Peter Baldung seems a natural choice. He wants to be part of the process that brings National Socialism to the working man. He also thinks that being a test driver might be fun.

When Howard returned he was wearing a leather dog-collar, a black latex posing pouch and nothing else. It did not seem the best moment to advise him on personal problems.

‘You know,’ Ishmael started, ‘there are many rooms in the mansion of human sexuality but whatever you’ve got in mind I’d just as soon keep this one locked.’

‘I hope you’re not going to turn out to be a tease,’ Howard said. ‘It’s very, very simple. I lie on the floor with my face under the glass table. You lower your blue leathers and you defecate on to the glass. That’s all, no touching, no sexual contact, no possibility of disease. And you’d make an ageing man very happy.’

Peter is indeed selected, along with perhaps a hundred others. Dr Porsche demonstrates the car to them, and each day they go along to the SS barracks in Kornwestheim, not far from the Porsche villa, and there they collect the motorcars that they will come to know intimately and to despise.

What would Debby have said if she could see her Barry now? Probably she would have sent for an exorcist and the vice squad. Then Ishmael remembered that he had set out on this journey for the sake of new feelings and experiences, and doing what Howard was asking would certainly be a new experience and a half. Howard had been kind with the offer to share a washer, had been free with his gin, and Ishmael was even in need of a bowel movement since the breakfast had worked its way through. But still…He dithered.

‘Pervy sex outside the context of a meaningful relationship would really be a mockery of the values I hold most dear.’

‘Dearie, underneath that cigarette lighter, the one shaped like a boatplane, you’ll find four fifty-pound notes. They’re yours if you do what I ask. And don’t give me any balls about meaningful relationships.’

Peter Baldung’s superiors have made it clear that he is not involved in a perk, in some piece of apolitical joyriding. He is taking part in a rigorous scientific experiment, an experiment which seems above all to exist in conditions of nightmarish security.

Peter is not allowed to discuss the tests, not in any way, except with the management and the SS officers involved with the project; and he must swear an oath to this effect, and this oath will not only apply now but for an indefinite period in the future.

He must report any and every observation or incident. Concerning the car, regardless of how trivial those incidents may appear to him, for he is, after all, not the one to judge. Of course, he is not allowed to take any passenger in the test vehicle, nor must any third party be shown any document or drawing or report or set of results that relate to the vehicle in any way. Smoking and drinking while with the car is naturally forbidden. Photographing the car is not absolutely forbidden, but any film containing an image of the vehicle must be given undeveloped to the management.

The management also retain the right to change any or all of these regulations at any time they see fit, and also to impose any new regulations as and when they seem necessary or desirable. Any breach of the regulations will result in the test driver being instantly reported to the Gestapo.