‘I didn’t want him to see me there, so I asked her if I could work in the kitchen for the rest of the shift. According to my aunt, his real name is Alphonse Schweitzer. I think he must have felt safe because the name Girard was his collaborator identity, if you see what I mean. No one would have realised that Schweitzer and Girard were one and the same.’

‘If only we knew where he is now.’

‘Aha – I can tell you! When the Communist Party leaders returned from Moscow, I told the man whose parents had been caught by Schweitzer exactly what had happened, and he was put on a wanted list. It took the FTP a while to find him, but I’m told they eventually tracked him down a few months ago in Colmar, which is a city in Alsace, on the border with Germany. They handed him over to the Russians.’

‘Why to the Russians?’

‘They’re good communists.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘Berlin. During the war, Alsace was annexed into the German Reich, so the Russians claimed that the proper course of action was to try him in Berlin.’

Prince and Hanne looked at each other and nodded. ‘If we go to Berlin, we can question him and find out the true identity of the Ferret,’ said Prince.

‘If Schweitzer’s still alive,’ said Irène. ‘Last month there was a report about his trial on the front page of L’Humanité: they’d sentenced him to death!’

Chapter 10

London and Berlin, September 1945

‘Berlin, you say?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Tom Gilbey shook his head and didn’t look nearly as pleased as Prince and Hanne did sitting in front of him. Shafts of late-morning sunlight caught their faces, enhancing their bright demeanour.

‘It’s always complicated, isn’t it? This is what I meant when I said how Europe is changing so fast and we don’t appear to be keeping up with whatever’s going on. I rather hoped that once the bloody war ended, life would be somewhat more straightforward, but instead it feels as if the rules have suddenly changed in the middle of a game. Now we have the Soviets to worry about, and Europe is still teeming with Nazis. It’s like the game’s over and now we’re into extra time. We had a games master at school who used to do that: kept adding on time to a match if his house was losing.’

He paused and held up his hand in apology, aware that he’d been rambling. He pushed his reading glasses down from his forehead and once again scanned the report they’d submitted on their return from Paris the previous day.

‘So it all seems to hinge on what this Irène woman says, eh? Seems rather tenuous, if you ask me.’

‘Marguerite checked her out and she is genuine. She was a member of a communist resistance group operating in and around the 15th, and supplied valuable intelligence from inside the mairie. Her husband was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. Marguerite couldn’t find anyone who had a bad word to say about her, which is saying something in Paris.’