‘Wolfgang, you devil! What the hell are you doing here?’

Steiner stepped back and blinked. The man looked very familiar, but he couldn’t for the life of him recall his name.

‘Don’t you remember me – it’s Gustav, Gustav Wagner. Surely you know me!’

‘Of course – Gustav: how are you?’

Wagner gripped Steiner’s hand and shook it enthusiastically. ‘I can’t believe I’ve bumped into you of all people: talk about this being my lucky day!’

Wagner was one of Steiner’s former ‘clients’, as he liked to call them. He’d been the Gauleiter of the area north of Bremen – the local political leader, a role with a good deal of influence – but had spent too much of his time abusing the privileges of office. He’d made contact with Steiner when he was accused of stealing party funds. Steiner had negotiated a solution: Wagner would admit to an accounting error, pay back the money and then accept a transfer to Poland, always an unpopular posting. The last time he’d seen him had been in February in Berlin. Wagner had told him he’d been in Budapest: I helped organise the transports to Auschwitz, I signed a lot of death warrants.

‘What are you up to, Wagner?’ Steiner pulled his hand away from the other man’s.

‘I’m on the run, Wolfgang – surely you are too? I can’t return home, and apparently my name’s on wanted lists in Poland and Hungary. They say I’m a war criminal – can you believe that? I never fired a gun, not once! I’m desperate for money. I thought Munich might be safer, but Christ, Wolfgang… it’s like the whole world’s changed.’

‘It has, Gustav.’

‘How come you’re in Munich?’

‘Same reason as you, I imagine.’

‘Please – can you help me?’ Wagner was holding Steiner’s arm with both hands. He looked as if he was on the verge of tears, his face lined and unshaven, his eyes hooded and bloodshot. ‘If I had money, I could buy papers to get me to Spain. I’ve heard there are people there who can help us; I even have an address in Bilbao.’

Steiner began to pull away from him, but stopped as a thought occurred to him. ‘I can help you, Gustav, of course I can… a loyal comrade, a good National Socialist. You see that bar there?’ He was pointing across the road at Bar 1860, the ‘6’ hanging at an odd angle. Most of its windows were boarded up, but the lights were on inside. ‘Meet me in there at four tomorrow afternoon and I’ll have money for you – enough to get you to Spain, and I think I may have the name of someone who can help get you there. I may even join you!’

‘That would be wonderful, Wolfgang. Imagine, just like old times!’

Steiner waited until eight o’clock before arriving on Neuhauser Strasse, where one of the few buildings in the street unscathed from Allied bombing had become the Red Cross Club for US Army officers.