March Violets by Philip Kerr

wives.’
    â€˜Divorce cases are just about the one kind of business that I don’t handle.’
    â€˜Is that a fact?’ she said, smiling quietly to herself. It irritated me quite a bit, that smile; in part because I felt she was patronizing me, but also because I wanted desperately to stop it with a kiss. Failing that, the back of my hand. ‘Tell me something. Do you make much money doing what you do?’ Tapping me on the thigh to indicate that she hadn’t finished her question, she added: ‘I don’t mean to sound rude. But what I want to know is, are you comfortable?’
    I took note of my opulent surroundings before answering. ‘Me, comfortable? Like a Bauhaus chair, I am.’ She laughed at that. ‘You didn’t answer my question about the Pfarrs,’ I said.
    â€˜Didn’t I?’
    â€˜You know damn well you didn’t.’
    She shrugged. ‘I knew them.’
    â€˜Well enough to know what Paul had against your husband?’
    â€˜Is that really what you’re interested in?’ she said.
    â€˜It’ll do for a start.’
    She gave an impatient little sigh. ‘Very well. We’ll play your game, but only until I get bored of it.’ She raised her eyebrows questioningly at me, and although I had no idea what she was talking about, I shrugged and said:
    â€˜That’s fine by me.’
    â€˜It’s true, they didn’t get on, but I haven’t the haziest why. When Paul and Grete first met, Hermann was against their getting married. He thought Paul wanted a nice platinum tooth - you know, a rich wife. He tried to persuade Grete to drop him. But Grete wouldn’t hear of it. After that, by all accounts they got on fine. At least until Hermann’s first wife died. By then I’d been seeing him for some time. It was when we got married that things really started to cool off between the two of them. Grete started drinking. And their marriage seemed little more than a fig-leaf, for decency’s sake - Paul being at the Ministry and all that.’
    â€˜What did he do there, do you know?’
    â€˜No idea.’
    â€˜Did he nudge around?’
    â€˜With other women?’ She laughed. ‘Paul was good-looking, but a bit lame. He was dedicated to his work, not another woman. If he did, he kept it very quiet.’
    â€˜What about her?’
    Rudel shook her golden head, and took a large gulp of her drink. ‘Not her style.’ But she paused for a moment and looked more thoughtful. ‘Although . . .’ She shrugged. ‘It probably isn’t anything.’
    â€˜Come on,’ I said. ‘Unpack it.’
    â€˜Well, there was one time in Dahlem, when I was left with just the tiniest suspicion that Grete might have had something going with Haupthändler.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Hermann’s private secretary. This would have been about the time when the Italians had entered Addis Ababa. I remember that only because I went to a party at the Italian Embassy.’
    â€˜That would have been early in May.’
    â€˜Yes. Anyway, Hermann was away on business, so I went by myself. I was filming at U F A the next morning and had to be up early. I decided to spend the night at Dahlem, so I would have a bit more time in the morning. It’s a lot easier getting to Babelsberg from there. Anyway, when I got home I poked my head around the drawing-room door in search of a book I had left there, and who should I find sitting in the dark but Hjalmar Haupthändler and Grete?’
    â€˜What were they doing?’
    â€˜Nothing. Nothing at all. That’s what made it so damned suspicious. It was two o’clock in the morning and there they were, sitting at opposite ends of the same sofa like a couple of school children on their first date. I could tell they were embarrassed to see me. They gave me some cabbage about just chatting and was that really the time. But I didn’t buy