Jumping to his feet, he went to the glass cabinet housing the most precious items of his extensive militaria collection: a Pour le Mérite awarded to an ace in Richthofen’s circus; a Victoria Cross from the horrors of the Somme. His most valuable item was a cutlass owned by Lord Nelson, valued at over half a million dollars. Sometimes, Sura thought her father’s obsession was driven by a compulsive need to vicariously possess the bravery of men. Despite his own medals and awards, the Bintang Sakti, Indonesia’s highest military award for valour, had eluded him in his fighting years.

‘Here we are.’

He reached in and retrieved an evil-looking dagger with a bulbous black handle. By far the most battered item in his collection, it was indisputably his favourite, for he had sourced it himself as a young lieutenant, when policing the border of Indonesia’s brand-new colonial possession. How a wizened old Papuan came to be walking around the jungle with an SS dagger in 1971 had been a family talking point ever since.

‘M. H.’ Her father read aloud the familiar initials on the oiled blade. He looked at her with a sparkle in his brown eyes. ‘Well, well. Have you solved the mystery, my clever girl?’

Her heart skipped a pathetic beat. All her life she had thirsted for his approval as dry earth does rain. Suddenly she felt like a giddy schoolgirl.

Having set the lure, she needed to keep these rare and unruly emotions in check, if she were to reel him in. If years of negotiating General Wijaya Suyanto’s affections had taught her anything, it was that they were transient and insubstantial. She must never let herself forget that he was as hard as Javan teak, deadlier than a pit viper.

‘It was a hunch, Father. Do you recall that find of Nazi weaponry in the upper Sepik last year?’

‘Of course. It was in all the papers.’

She explained how it had inspired her to search thousands of American and Australian military records, looking for a link to the dagger – and, hopefully, an explanation.

‘Sura, I checked already.’

‘Yes, Father, but you were looking at the war years, 1939 to 1945.’

She recounted finding the report on a deceased SS officer, filed by an Australian patrol boat in 1946; how the trail had led her to a clerk who had pocketed the artefacts and taken them back to Australia, where they stayed in a drawer for years, until he died. From here, they were sold by his son to a wealthy militaria collector, who had only reluctantly surrendered them to her for an astronomical sum.

Her father’s canny eyes glowed. ‘And you went to all this trouble for me?’

She held his gaze. ‘I did it to make you happy. But in the process I have discovered something so incredible, and so valuable, that I could not share it with anyone but you.’