‘Yes, I heard you the first time, sir.’

‘I didn’t see you react.’

‘And how would you like me to react, sir?’

He watched Gilbey move awkwardly in his chair and felt an odd sense of indestructibility: his boss could hardly discipline him for insubordination when he’d just announced his wife was missing.

Gilbey shrugged, looking at his desk as if that would provide him with something to say. ‘It might not be such bad news; it’s possible it’s not as sinister as it sounds.’

‘Oh really, sir – in what way exactly? That it turns out Hanne was having such a good time that she decided to go and explore the countryside and her postcard telling us is delayed in the post? She was in Villach to try and pick up the trail of the Kestrel Line. By the sounds of it, she may have done just that, and now the Nazis have captured her.’

Gilbey nodded. It was hard to disagree.

‘What about the Field Security Section – weren’t they meant to be looking after her?’

‘They were, Richard. In fact it was Captain Hart from the FSS in Villach who raised the alarm. He—’

‘I mean, shouldn’t they have been with her all the time? It’s not as if she was looking for a jewel thief: she was hunting for escaping Nazi war criminals, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Come on, Richard. One realises this is distressing news, but perhaps a sense of calm might be helpful. I can assure you Hart’s commanding officer in Klagenfurt, Major Stewart, is hopping mad about this, though he does say that apparently Hanne showed a tendency to operate on her own.’

‘Well she was hardly going to drag the Home Guard around the town with her, was she, sir?’

‘Somewhat unfair, Prince.’

‘What do we know?’

‘Evidently on the Tuesday afternoon Hanne went to see a Frau Winkler, who may have had information about recent suspicious Nazi activity in the town. According to Frau Winkler, she told Hanne that a Nazi acquaintance of hers called Frau Egger was working at a house overlooking the Ossiacher See, which is a lake just outside the town. She said she’d been hired by a man from Vienna and the house had armed guards. Hanne never told Hart about this. Early the following morning, one of Hart’s chaps spotted her getting on the bus to Bodensdorf, which would have stopped close to the house.’

‘And nothing from then on?’

Gilbey shook his head. ‘And before you ask, yes, the FSS are combing the area around the house, but they need to be discreet – they don’t want to alert whoever’s holding Hanne. The feeling is that if they know we’re looking for her, it may blow whatever cover she was using.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘You’d better get out there as soon as possible.’

‘That goes without saying, sir.’

‘Shame, though, Prince, what with you making such good progress with the gallery.’

The accountant’s name was Slater, and with his stooped stance, common in tall men, along with a miserable expression, he was the kind of person one had to resist the urge to tell to cheer up.