‘And you didn’t think to report this intelligence about Martin Bormann?’

‘I did think about it; in fact I sent a note to be placed on his file, but I understand it got lost. With hindsight, I should have perhaps reported the matter to my superior, but I was so busy I—’

‘And the other initials?’

‘FFM stands for Frankfurt am Main; RLB, as you know, is for Reichsleiter Bormann. The V, according to my notes, stands for Villach, which is a town in the south of Austria and is apparently a stop on the Kestrel Line. But the T – Hoffman says Kühn couldn’t remember what that stood for, other than it was the final destination on the escape route: from there they go to South America, so our assumption is that it’s Turin.’

‘And that’s it?’

The young NKVD officer shook his head. ‘When Comrade Kommissar Gurevich contacted me, I got in touch with Hoffman to check that my notes were correct, and he said that Kühn had recently been leaving messages that he wants to see him urgently – he seems to have news, but he’s in the British sector and doesn’t want to leave it, and now that Hoffman is working for us, he’s reluctant to travel there.’

‘I’m sure that’s something we can sort out,’ said Prince.

‘Kühn is a bag of nerves and doesn’t trust anyone.’

Paul Hoffman paused and looked up at Hanne and Prince, though it was clear he was paying more attention to Hanne. He was an elegant man who seemed to have adapted very easily to his new role as an officer in the Soviet-organised German police force. He was wearing a smart coat and an expensive-looking pair of spectacles, and when he moved his arm, there was a flash of gold on his wrist. The transformation from Nazi policeman to a communist one had evidently not been too onerous.

‘I saw him on and off during the war, and like me he felt he was living on borrowed time.’

‘You’d better explain.’

‘Of course. I can understand how he felt, because to a great extent I was in the same position as him. Remember, we’d both been in the KPD: in my case I’d remained in it for a longer period of time, but I had found the KPD Prenzlauer Berg branch records in 1934, I think it was, and removed any details to do with me, even though I’d used a false name. And I was a police officer too: not quite above suspicion, but certainly in a more favourable position than a schoolteacher – especially one whose behaviour had been as rash as Kühn’s had in the early part of the war. Now the war is over, the last thing he wants is to be mixed up in Nazi escape lines.’

‘So how come he’s been in touch with you?’

‘You’re both police officers, I understand?’ He looked from Hanne to Prince. ‘So you’ll understand what people can be like under what I would call the pressure of having to conceal something: it’s human instinct to want to talk, to share confidences. It’s a way of unburdening yourself. Often you want the person you’re confiding in to say you’re not to worry.