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removed from the weapon earlier. The empty cases followed.
    ‘That’s fifty rounds altogether,’ he said, ‘fired and fired, just so you can keep your books straight.’
    ‘Thanks, Alex,’ Cumming replied, gently disengaging Claire’s arms from around his waist. He extended his right arm and shook Tremayne’s hand firmly.
    ‘Anything else I can do?’
    ‘Not right now,’ Cumming said, ‘but I’m waiting for news from Germany. There’s a situation developing over there that might require the use of your unique talents. In the meantime, take a couple of days off. I’ll have somebody contact you as soon as there’s any news.’

Chapter 2
    7 April 1912
Berlin
    ‘But you are sure that he’s dead?’
    The heavyset man standing beside the window turned and walked back to his desk. Although he was the head of the Preußische Geheimpolizei in Berlin, he was wearing the dark-blue uniform with silver buttons of a regular German police officer. Eberhard Neumann had found that he could move about his city far more easily, and almost invariably be unchallenged, when dressed in this manner. And there were certain other advantages too.
    Neumann sat down in his comfortable leather chair before he replied. ‘We can’t be certain, no,’ he replied in English. ‘My man fired five shots and, according to his companion, hit the English spy three times. In the circumstances – just after midnight, the only illumination the street lights, with snow falling and the target running away – that was very good shooting. Unfortunately, I can’t ask my rifleman for any further information because he’s dead. One of the military sentries outside the British Embassy shot him just after he fired the last round.’
    ‘Have you registered a protest? Surely the shooting of a German citizen in the heart of Berlin by an English soldier stationed at their embassy is a flagrant breach of diplomatic protocols?’
    ‘It is, and normally we would, but this situation is far from normal. If we protest, every aspect of the matter will be placed under scrutiny, by my masters as well as by the British, and we both know that that is not a good idea.’
    Neumann paused for a few moments and inspected his fingernails. ‘I decided that the best – in fact probably the only – viable course of action was to cover up the incident as quickly as possible. I had the body of my man removed from the street, together with his rifle and all the spent cartridge cases. While my people were doing this, they noticed that the British Embassy staff were doing exactly the same thing with their spy. And there’s something else that makes me think he’s dead.’
    Gunther Voss leaned forward in his seat. ‘Yes? What was it?’
    ‘Immediately the incident was over, and the two bodies had been removed, I ordered two of my men to walk down Wilhelmstraße. They easily found the two sites where the Englishman had been shot. There was evidence of heavy bleeding at the first spot, then a trail of blood as he got up and staggered forward, and a large pool of blood where the man finally fell.’
    Voss nodded. ‘Exactly what I would have expected from your description of the incident.’
    ‘But at the second site, right outside the doors of the British Embassy, they also saw fragments of grey-white tissue. For obvious reasons – they were both being watched very closely by the sentries posted outside the building – they couldn’t examine it closely, but both were convinced that it was brain matter. I think that last shot probably hit the Englishman’s head. If it did, it would have killed him instantly.’
    A slow smile of satisfaction spread across Gunther Voss’s vulpine features.
    ‘The only other concern is whether or not he said anything to either of the British sentries in his last moments.’
    The smile faded from Voss’s face. ‘How much could the spy possibly have said in that short space of time? And by then he was so badly wounded that he might not