He crossed his legs, coolly. “No. Look, this is all very confusing. I think I need a cigarette.”

His hand went into the pocket. But I was quicker.

“Uh-uh,” I said, and holding the Smith Wesson just a few inches above his belly, I smacked his hand out of his coat pocket and then took out a walnut-handled PPK. I glanced at it briefly. It was a thirty-eight with a Nazi eagle on the grip.

“Not very clever of you,” I said. “Keeping something like this.”

“You’re the one who’s not being very clever,” he said.

I pocketed the pistol and sat down again. “Oh? How’s that?”

“Because I’m a friend of the president.”

“Is that so?”

“I advise you to put that gun away and leave now.”

“Not before we’ve had a little talk, Mengele. About old times.” I thumbed back the hammer on the Smith. “And if I don’t like the answers, then I’m going to have to offer you a prompt. In the foot. And then in the leg. I’m sure you know how it works, Doctor. A Socratic dialogue?”

“Socratic?”

“Yes. I encourage you to reflect and to think and, together”-I waved the gun at him-“together we search for the truth to some important questions. No philosophical training is needed, but if I think you’re not trying to help us reach a consensus-well, you remember what happened to Socrates, don’t you? His fellow Athenians forced him to put a gun to his head and blow his own brains out. Something like that, anyway.”

“Why on earth do you care what happened to Anita Schwarz?” Mengele asked angrily. “It was almost twenty years ago.”

“Not just Anita Schwarz. Elizabeth Bremer, too. The girl in Munich?”

“It wasn’t what you think,” he insisted.

“No? What was it, then? Dadaism? I seem to remember that was quite popular before the Nazis. Let’s see now. You eviscerated those two girls because you were an artist who believed in meaning through chaos. You used their insides for a collage. Or perhaps a nice photograph. There were you and Max Ernst and Kurt Schwitters. No? How about this, then? You were a medical student who decided to make a bit of extra money by offering backstreet abortions to underage girls. It’s the details I’m not clear about. The when and the how.”

“If I tell you, will you leave me alone?”

“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to shoot you.” I took aim at his foot. “Then I’ll leave you alone. To bleed to death.”

“All right, all right.”

“Let’s start in Munich. With Elizabeth Bremer.”

Mengele shook his head until, seeing me take aim at his foot again, he waved his hands. “No, no, I’m just trying to cast my mind back. But it’s difficult. So much has happened since then. You’ve no idea how irrelevant all this seems to a man like me. You’re talking about two accidental deaths that happened almost twenty years ago.” He laughed bitterly. “I was at Auschwitz, you know. And what happened there was, of course, quite extraordinary. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened. Three million died at Auschwitz. Three million. And you just want to talk about two children.”

“I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to finish an investigation.”

“Listen to yourself. You sound like one of those stupid Canadian cowboys. What is it that they call them? The Mounties? They always get their man. Is that really all this is? Professional pride? Or is there something else I’m missing?”

“I’m asking the questions, Doctor. But as it happens, there is some professional pride here, yes. I’m sure you know what that’s like, you being a professional man yourself. I got taken off this case, for political reasons. Because I wasn’t a Nazi. I didn’t like that then and I don’t like it now. So. Let’s start with Walter Pieck. You knew him quite well, didn’t you? From Gunzburg.”

“Of course. Everyone knows everyone else in Gunzburg. It’s a very Catholic little town. Walter and I were at school together. At least until he failed his Abitur. He was always more interested in sports. Especially winter sports. He was a fantastic skater and skier. And I should know. I’m a good skier myself. Anyway, he quarreled with his father and went to work in Munich. I passed my Abitur and went to study in Munich. We lived very separate lives but, occasionally, we would meet up for a beer. I even lent him a bit of money now and then.

“My family was quite wealthy by the standards of Gunzburg. Even today, Gunzburg is the Mengele family. But my father, Karl, was a cold figure and somewhat jealous of me, I think. For this reason, perhaps, he kept me short of money when I was at medical school and I resolved to earn some extra myself. It so happened that another old friend’s girl was pregnant, and, having already studied quite a bit on the subject of obstetrics and gynecology as a student, I offered to help them get rid of it. Actually, it’s quite a simple procedure. Before long, I’d carried out several abortions. I made quite a bit of money. I bought a small car with the proceeds.

“Then Walter’s girlfriend got pregnant. Elizabeth was a lovely girl. Too good for Walter. Anyway, she was adamant that she didn’t want to keep the child. She wanted to go to university and study medicine herself.” Mengele frowned and shook his head. “I thought I was helping her. But. There were complications. A hemorrhage. Even in a hospital bed, she would probably have died, you understand. But this was in my apartment, in Munich. And I had no way of helping her. She bled to death on my kitchen table.” He paused for a moment and almost looked troubled at the memory of it. “You must remember, I was still a young man, with my whole future ahead of me. I wanted to help people. As a doctor, you understand. Anyway, I panicked. I had a dead body on my hands. And it would have been quite obvious to any pathologist that she had had an abortion. I was desperate to cover my tracks.

“It was Walter’s idea, really, that I should remove all her sexual organs. There had been some lurid details of an old lust murder in some magazine he’d been reading, and he said that if we made Elizabeth’s death look like one of those, it would at least ensure the police did not come looking for an illegal abortionist. I agreed. So I cut her up, like something out of an anatomy lesson, and Walter disposed of her body. His father in Gunzburg gave him an alibi. Said he’d been at home at the time of Elizabeth’s death. He was used to doing that for Walter. But after that, Walter had to toe the line. Do what his father told him. Which is how he ended up joining the SS. To keep him out of trouble.” Mengele laughed. “Ironic, really, when you think about it. The Americans shot him at Dachau.” He shook his head. “But I certainly didn’t mean to kill that poor girl. She was lovely. A real Aryan beauty. I was trying to help her. And why not? She made a mistake, that’s all. It happens all the time. And to the most respectable people.”

“Tell me about Kassner,” I said. “How did you know him?”

“From Munich. His estranged wife lived there. He was trying to persuade her to come back to him. Unsuccessfully, as it turned out. Someone introduced us at a party. And it turned out we shared a number of interests. In anthropology, in human genetics, in medical research, and in National Socialism. He was a friend of Goebbels, you know. Anyway, I used to go and visit him in Berlin. To spend in the fleshpots some of what I’d been making from carrying out abortions. They were the best times of my life. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what Berlin was like in those days. There was complete sexual license.”

“Which is how you caught a dose of jelly.”

“Yes, that’s right. How did you know about that?”

“And Kassner treated you with the new ‘magic bullet’ he was testing for I. G. Farben. Protonsil.”

Mengele looked impressed. “Yes. That’s right, too. I can see that the reputation of the Berlin police force was well deserved.”