On the first day, Möller allowed Schweitzer to tell his own story, a typically self-serving account of a fanatical and committed Nazi who was anxious to blame everyone else for the predicament he found himself in and who was now desperately clutching at the unlikely straw of being reprieved by Marshal Zhukov.

‘Have you heard of this petition, Reinhard?’

‘Of course: apparently the British and Americans wanted the Soviets to observe more of a judicial process.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘What do I think about what, Alphonse?’

‘About my chances of being reprieved?’

‘Quite good, I’d say: look, they’re hardly going to waste Zhukov’s time with someone they were going to execute anyway. I only wish I was eligible for this – but you know, being German…’

It wasn’t until later on the Tuesday that Möller opened up about himself. He was from Dortmund, he’d joined the party in 1934 and become a Gestapo officer in 1938. From the summer of 1941 onwards, he’d been based at their Amsterdam headquarters on Euterpestraat. He’d managed to escape at the end of the war, but for some mad reason had headed east rather than west… a woman in Leipzig, he must have been crazy… and here he was.

Schweitzer seemed impressed, especially when Möller told him he’d been responsible for finding communists and socialists in the Netherlands, and recounted in some detail how many he’d caught and how many he’d killed with his own hands. Schweitzer had already explained how he himself had worked for the Gestapo in Paris, ‘though I wasn’t as important as you, Reinhard’; the other man told him not to be so silly and of course he was important, and Schweitzer said please not to tell Marshal Zhukov, as then he’d definitely be executed.

They both laughed, and then Reinhard Möller mentioned casually how he’d worked with a Gestapo officer in Amsterdam who’d been transferred from Paris.

‘I can’t for the life of me remember his name, Alphonse – I don’t know what’s happened to my memory. He was a young chap, quite good-looking. Austrian, I think. We knew him by his nickname, the Ferret. I don’t suppose you ever came across him?’

Alphonse Schweitzer slapped his new friend’s thigh. ‘Of course I did! He worked with me at the mairie for a while. Difficult chap, very arrogant; father was a big cheese here in Berlin. As I recall, while he was based in Paris, he completely screwed up an investigation. They wanted to throw him out of the Gestapo, but his father arranged for him to be transferred to Amsterdam – quite a lot of the senior officers in the Netherlands were Austrian, and I think the father used that connection.’

‘That would have been when?’

‘Early 1944, I guess.’

‘That’s right – your memory’s so much better than mine. I don’t suppose you remember his name?’

‘I do, as it happens. His name was Friedrich Steiner, and I even recall his father’s name: Wolfgang.’

When Kiselyov came into the cell the following morning, Reinhard Möller asked him if the date for his hearing had been fixed, the agreed code to indicate that he had the information he needed.