‘Don’t worry, my friend.’ It was the man walking next to him who spoke, his accent foreign. Prince sensed that the couple in front and the man behind were now even closer: it felt like a trap.

‘I have greetings for you from my colleague Iosif in Berlin. He hopes you are well.’

‘I hardly think—’

‘I have limited time, so it will be best served by you listening to me. Iosif assumes you are travelling to Austria to look for Hanne.’

‘How the hell do you know that?’

The man shrugged. He was a big man with a neat beard, a hat pulled low over his face. He kept his head down as he spoke. ‘Please listen. Iosif says to go to Vienna first. He’ll meet you there: don’t worry about finding him, he’ll find you.’

‘I can’t go to Vienna. I have to go south; I have to find Hanne.’

‘That, my friend, is why he wants to meet you in Vienna!’

Chapter 22

Austria, December 1945

‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’

The man who’d appeared beside him was pointing at the Hofburg Palace as if Prince hadn’t noticed it. Prince had been standing in the drizzle on Heldenplatz in front of the enormous edifice for a few minutes, and had begun to feel thoroughly miserable. He now felt an enormous sense of relief.

‘In what way?’

The man concentrated on finishing his cigarette. ‘You’d do well to find a more impressive symbol of imperialism still standing in Europe, and now it’s under the control of the Soviet Union! So when I said “wonderful”, I meant the irony of us controlling what was once the heart of the Habsburg Empire.’

Prince laughed. ‘But you don’t control it, do you? The centre of Vienna’s an international zone. We control this place as much as you do, and we still have an empire – though by the sounds of it, you’re starting to acquire one!’

Iosif Gurevich laughed, then turned to embrace Prince and told him it was good to see him. ‘I didn’t think you’d get here quite so soon.’

They’d started to walk and were now on Löwelstrasse, the drizzle turning into heavy rain. ‘I was told you might be able to help me find Hanne. You can’t imagine how desperate I am, Iosif.’

‘Is that what they told you?’

Prince recounted what had happened the previous evening in Holland Park.

‘I said not to be so heavy-handed. Four of them behaving like that is ridiculous: it sounds as if they were planning to abduct you! That’s the problem with London station. They have no sense of proportion. You look dreadful, by the way.’

‘I feel it. I can’t remember when I last slept.’

‘Come, I have somewhere we can talk.’

Prince certainly hadn’t slept the previous night. After his encounter with the Russians in Holland Park, he’d returned to the safe house, the message that Gurevich could help him to find Hanne occupying his every thought.

He should have reported what had happened straight away, but decided against it. He didn’t want anything to jeopardise his chances of finding Hanne, especially now the Russians seemed to be offering some hope.