Prince and Hanne glanced at each other, and she raised her eyebrows. Tom Gilbey had assured them Wilson would do all he could to help, but his attitude could at best be described as grudging. They were in a small restaurant on Avenue Carnot, close to the hotel on Avenue de la Grande Armée where Prince and Hanne were staying. It had indeed felt like a honeymoon until now.

‘By the way…’ Wilson was still chewing a piece of steak as he spoke, jabbing his fork in their direction, ‘I presume you’re on expenses?’

Prince said they were, and Wilson said in that case there was a very decent Côtes du Rhône on the wine list, and would they mind terribly if he ordered a bottle?

‘I suspect the Germans shipped the best wines back home,’ he continued, still chewing as he spoke. ‘Hardly a decent bottle to be found in the city, but for some reason they appear to have left the Côtes du Rhône. Odd, eh?’

They agreed it was odd, and Hanne said something about how maybe they’d poisoned them, and Wilson looked unsure if it was a joke. When the bottle arrived, he insisted on pouring: a large glass for himself, a slightly smaller one for Prince and a half-glass at best for Hanne. He looked annoyed when Prince picked up the bottle and topped up their glasses.

‘Is your hotel all right, by the way?’

‘It’s perfect, thank you.’

‘Jolly good – had to pull a few strings to get you a decent room. Tom tells me you need to find someone. Care to tell me more?’ He was using his steak knife to dislodge a piece of meat from between his teeth.

‘I’m not sure how much he told you…’

Wilson was helping himself to another glass of wine, ignoring theirs. Gilbey had told them he could come across as somewhat brusque, but that he’d had a decent war and had managed to get into Paris before the liberation. Since then he’d been based at the British Embassy in rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, helping to establish the MI6 station there. ‘He’s got a bloody good network of contacts.’

‘Start at the beginning. I say, is your steak a bit tough?’

Prince gestured to Hanne, whom Wilson had ignored until now. She placed her cutlery carefully on her plate, sipped some wine and began; her Danish accent barely noticeable. ‘In December 1943, an SOE circuit in Dijon was broken up by the Germans—’

‘Yes, Tractor I think it was. Chap known as the Captain seems to have betrayed them. He’s on my “must find” list. Carry on.’

‘An SOE agent called Christine Butler was captured; she was using the name Thérèse Dufour. Her radio operator was either killed or killed himself. A Gestapo officer came down from Paris to interrogate her, but she was so badly injured by him she was taken to the infirmary at Dijon prison. A couple of days later, the same Gestapo officer ordered her to be carried out of the prison, where he shot her.’