‘What do you know about Trieste, Hanne?’ Marija said.

‘Not much, other than looking at the map yesterday. It’s an Italian port and it isn’t too far from here.’

‘It’s as much a Slovenian city as it is an Italian one. From the centre of Trieste to the Slovenian border is just five miles.’ Jožef had moved out of the gloom and was now standing in front of Hanne. ‘We Slovenes suffered terribly there during the war. The Italians treated us badly enough, but it became far worse when the Germans occupied the city in September 1943. The bastards even built a concentration camp there, you know.’

‘Risiera di San Sabba,’ said Marija. ‘Thousands of Slovenes, Jews and political prisoners were murdered there. Many more were sent from there to the death camps.’

‘Our partisans captured the city on May Day,’ continued Jožef. ‘Marija and I fought in that battle. But the Germans would only surrender to troops from New Zealand. They knew what we’d do to them.’

‘We got our chance, though.’ Marija had moved out of the gloom too. ‘They handed over the city to us and we controlled it for forty days until it was given back to the British. We got our revenge, especially against the traitors.’

‘So we’ll be at home in Trieste, Hanne, we consider it to be our city. And you don’t want to worry about us being spotted. We know every shadow.’

‘And you never know – you may be grateful we’re there.’

It was one hundred miles from Villach in Austria to Trieste in Italy, all of it across territory controlled by the British Army. They crossed the Gailtal Alps into Slovenia just north of Kranjska Gora, heading south before entering Italy at Gorizia.

The final part of the journey was over a stretch of rocky terrain called the Carso, and it was the middle of the afternoon when they arrived at the Field Security Section on Via San Lazzaro. Bartholomew was in a top-floor office with the windows wide open despite the cold. It was close to dusk, the twinkling lights of the Adriatic just visible through the mist.

‘They’re mercurial, this bloody pair, I can tell you that.’ Bartholomew looked as if he’d not slept in days. He was in the same raincoat he always seemed to wear. ‘They must be important, because they seem to have plenty of local help. I can’t believe we lost them in Paris, but fortunately we counted on them moving on and we’re not exactly short-staffed there so we had every station covered. We almost lost them in Geneva too, which would have been a disaster, but they were collected from the station in a green Renault and we were able to follow that to where they stayed overnight and from there to Turin, but I can tell you we’ve been stretched to the limit. This Italian coffee is remarkable, you should try it… you don’t need to sleep!’

‘What happened in Turin?’