‘Meaning…?’

‘Meaning that many men from the town served in the German forces, and some of them are beginning to come home, especially those claiming to be Wehrmacht conscripts. We interrogate each and every one of those, just to be sure no SS chaps are slipping through the net. You’ll have seen when we drove in yesterday that the town was quite badly bombed, lots of buildings destroyed and two or three hundred civilians killed by all accounts. It doesn’t make them terribly well disposed towards us – when the Eighth Army captured the town, there wasn’t much bunting out, I can tell you. Anyway, how we can help you?’

Hanne explained that they were searching for a Gestapo officer originally known as the Ferret whose real name was Friedrich Steiner. With the help of the Russians, they’d found out that his father, Wolfgang, was involved in organising an escape route called the Kestrel Line. They knew precious little about it, she said, other than that Friedrich was on it and that it started in Frankfurt and Villach was a stopping point.

‘You’re sure of that?’

She said she was reasonably sure.

‘No other clues?’

She shrugged. ‘He may be accompanied by a one-armed man – he was with him in Frankfurt when he escaped – but that’s about it. There is something else, Captain… I think if we were just searching for one Gestapo officer, we would have given up by now, but we believe Wolfgang Steiner was organising the Kestrel Line not primarily for his son but for a very prominent Nazi, for whom he worked in Berlin. His name is Martin Bormann.’ She was about to ask whether he’d heard of him, but Hart let out a long whistle and his eyes widened.

‘Really?’

‘He is certainly connected with it, but we don’t know where he is. We know he hasn’t been captured, and if he’s dead, no one has claimed it. So there’s good reason to believe he’s on the Kestrel Line. It should be easier to find Friedrich Steiner, and he could lead us to Bormann.’

Captain Hart frowned. ‘I can see how important this is. I would suggest we interrogate prominent people in the town, and most especially the Nazis—’

Hanne shook her head. ‘No, no, no – that won’t work; in fact it could just alert them. I doubt many Nazis in a place like this would know anything about the Kestrel Line, and if they do, they’re not going to say anything. I have a thought, though. Have you come across anyone here who you are certain wasn’t a Nazi – who perhaps has strong anti-Nazi credentials?’

Hart laughed and pushed his chair back. ‘If there was anyone like that, they wouldn’t have survived through the war, I can tell you that. Remember, the Nazis came to power in Austria in early 1938. No anti-Nazi we could trust would have stayed free for seven years. But even if we found such a person, what would they know?’