‘I was told they had sent a team to Villach. But it is important that you know I instructed them that under no circumstances should any harm come to you or Hanne: I made it very clear that you’re both to be treated as comrades… Why are you shaking your head?’

‘Because how do I know we can trust them?’

‘They will know not to upset someone like me, but if there are any problems, you can contact me on this telephone number. Someone here in Vienna will answer. If necessary, I can come back here and sort things out.’

Well before her husband had arrived in Vienna – indeed, some time before he’d left London – Hanne found herself in the small wood outside Villach, standing against the base of the tree with her hands in the air as she’d been instructed to do. The man who’d given the order stood in front of her. A woman was next to him, and Hanne recognised them as the couple she’d assumed were hikers when they’d passed her minutes earlier.

Neither of them said a word, and when Hanne began to speak, the woman put a finger to her lips. The three of them stood still as the couple listened carefully. There was not a sound to be heard other than a light wind brushing the tops of the trees. Eventually the man nodded, and the woman stepped forward and searched Hanne then indicated she could lower her hands.

‘Are you alone?’

The man spoke quietly but firmly and Hanne thought she detected a lack of menace in his voice. She replied that she was, and when he asked what she was doing here in the woods, she said she was out for a walk.

‘You walked up a tree?’

She shrugged and said something about looking round, and when the man asked why she was looking at the house, she said she didn’t know what he was talking about, realising as soon as she said it just how unconvincing it sounded.

‘We can talk later, it’s not safe here – but you probably know that. Come.’

They started to walk through the woods, Hanne behind the woman and in front of the man. When they reached the wooden fence, she noticed a younger man crouched by it with a pistol in his hand. He spoke quietly with the couple in a language she couldn’t place before heading off. Hanne waited in the woods with the couple, the three of them sitting down between the trees. She asked what this was all about and said she needed to return to the town, but they shook their heads and said ‘later’.

After about an hour, the younger man returned and they followed him to a car parked on the nearby lane. As far as Hanne could tell, they drove past Villach and ended up somewhere to the south-east of the town. On the outskirts of a village, they pulled onto a rough track and then into a farmyard. The farmhouse was bitterly cold and sparsely furnished.