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There was one Luther. Christian name: Martin. Now here, comrades, is an historic name to play with. But this Luther looked nothing like his famous namesake. He was pudding-faced with black hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses. March took out his notebook.

Born: 16 December 1895, Berlin. Served in the German Army transport division, 1914-18. Profession: furniture remover. Joined the NSDAP and the SA on 1 March 1933. Sat on the Berlin City Council for the Dahlem district. Entered the Foreign Office, 1936. Head of Abteilung Deutschland — the “German Division” — of the Foreign Office until retirement in 1955. Promoted to Under State Secretary, July 1941.

The details were sparse, but clear enough for March to guess his type. Chippy and aggressive, a rough-and-tumble street politician. And an opportunist. Like thousands of others, Luther had rushed to join the Party a few weeks after Hitler had come to power.

He flicked through the pages to Stuckart, Wilhelm, Doctor of Law. The photograph was a professional studio portrait, the face cast in a film star’s brooding half-shadow. A vain man, and a curious mixture: curly grey hair, intense eyes, straight jawline — yet a flabby, almost voluptuous mouth. He took more notes.

Born 16 November 1902, Wiesbaden. Studied law and economics at Munich and Frankfurt-am-Main universities. Graduated Magna Cum Laude, June 1928. Joined the Party in Munich in 1922. Various SA and SS positions. Mayor of Stettin, 1933. State Secretary, Ministry of the Interior, 1935-53. Publication: A Commentary on the German Racial Laws (1936). Promoted honorary SS-Obergruppenfuhrer, 1944. Returned to private legal practice, 1953.

Here was a character quite different from Luther. An intellectual; an alter Kampfer, like Buhler; a high-flyer. To be Mayor of Stettin, a port city of nearly 300,000, at the age of thirty-one… Suddenly, March realised he had read all this before, very recently. But where? He could not remember. He closed his eyes. Come on.

Wer Ist’s? added nothing new, except that Stuckart was unmarried whereas Luther was on his third wife. He found a clean double-page in his notebook and drew three columns; headed them Buhler, Luther and Stuckart; and began making lists of dates. Compiling a chronology was a favourite tool of his, a method of finding a pattern in what seemed otherwise to be a fog of random facts.

They had all been born in roughly the same period. Buhler was sixty-four; Luther, sixty-eight; Stuckart, sixty-one. They had all become civil servants in the 1930s -Buhler in 1939, Luther in 1936, Stuckart in 1935. They had all held roughly .similar ranks — Buhler and Stuckart had been state secretaries; Luther, an under state secretary. They had all retired in the 1950s- Buhler in 1951, Luther in 1955, Stuckart in 1953. They must all have known one another. They had all met at 10 am the previous Friday. Where was the pattern?

March tilted back in his chair and stared up at the tangle of pipes chasing one another like snakes across the ceiling.

And then he remembered.

He pitched himself forward, on to his feet.

Next to the entrance were loosely bound volumes of the Berliner Tageblatt, the Volkischer Beobachter and the SS paper, Das Schwarzes Korps. He wrenched back the pages of the Tageblatt, back to yesterday’s issue, back to the obituaries. There it was. He had seen it last night.

Party Comrade Wilhelm Stuckart, formerly State Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, who died suddenly of heart failure on Sunday, 13 April, will be remembered as a dedicated servant of the National Socialist cause…

The ground seemed to shift beneath his feet. He was aware of the Registrar staring at him. “Are you ill, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer?”

“No. I’m fine. Do me a favour, will you?” He picked up a file requisition slip and wrote out Stuckart’s full name and date of birth. “Will you see if there’s a file on this person?”

She looked at the slip and held out a hand. “ID.”

He gave her his identity card. She licked her pencil and entered the twelve digits of March’s service number on to the requisition form. By this means a record was kept of which Kripo investigator had requested which file, and at what time. His interest would be there for the Gestapo to see, a full eight hours after he had been ordered off the Buhler case. Further evidence of his lack of National Socialist discipline. It could not be helped.

The Registrar had pulled out a long wooden drawer of index cards and was marching her square-tipped fingers along the tops of them. “Stroop,” she murmured. “Strunck. Struss. Stulpnagel…”

March said: “You’ve gone past it.”

She grunted and pulled out a slip of pink paper. “ ‘Stuckart, Wilhelm.’ ” She looked at him. “There is a file. It’s out.”

“Who has it?”

“See for yourself.”

March leaned forwards. Stuckart’s file was with Sturm-bannfuhrer Fiebes of Kripo Department VB3. The sexual crimes division.