‘A phone call, then,’ he said with a return of his usual hail-fellow-well-met bluff jollity. He slapped the flat of his hand against his massive thigh. ‘And in exchange, not only increased textile and uniform production, but increased steel production too.’

When Claus stepped out once again into the Bendlerstrasse he did so fairly certain it would only be a matter of hours before Hester was released. He pushed a lock of hair away from his forehead, reflecting that Hugo now owed him in a big, big way.

Max had no intention of risking a phone conversation to Fritz. Instead, when he left the Unter den Linden mansion he made straight for the railway station and a train for Munich.

The newspaper he picked up before boarding the train did not make for comfortable reading. ‘POLAND, LOOK OUT’ warned a banner headline. ‘ANSWER TO POLAND, THE RUNNER-AMOK AGAINST PEACE AND RIGHT IN EUROPE!’

There had been, of course, no foreign newspapers on sale at the kiosk. If there had been, Germans might have been able to read of how the rest of the world considered it was Germany that was running amok and putting the peace of Europe in jeopardy and that it was Germany that was threatening to attack Poland, not Poland that was, according to the newspaper Max was now reading, threatening Germany with armed invasion. That the German public believed such a ludicrous assertion was, to Max, beyond belief.

He went down to the buffet car and bought himself a cup of coffee and then, wishing he’d had the foresight to have brought something intelligent with him to read on the train, passed the long journey by reading the rest of the Berliner Zeitung from cover to cover.

‘A contact in the Berlin Gestapo?’ Fritz asked quizzically. ‘And it doesn’t matter whether it’s an agent or a member of the clerical staff?’

They were seated in a quiet corner of Fritz’s favourite beer-cellar, foaming tankards on the table in front of them.

Max flashed Fritz what he hoped would be interpreted as a wry smile. ‘I’m trying to locate the whereabouts of a woman arrested two days ago in Mitte. As a private citizen I don’t have the clout to find out that kind of information.’

‘That’s your own fault,’ Fritz said, no real censure in his voice. ‘I’ve been telling you for years to join the Gestapo. It was the best thing I ever did. I’ve signed up for twelve years and I get all the perks of a public employee, including medical insurance and a full state pension. I’ll put in a word for you, if you want.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Max said easily. ‘And perhaps you can tell me which camp this woman I’m trying to trace is likely to be sent to? There’re so many new ones now, it’s hard to keep track.’

Fritz took a long drink of his beer, wiped his foam-fringed mouth with the back of his hand and then said, ‘At one time, especially if she has been arrested as Volksschädling— a public pest—it would have been down here, to Dachau. That was where all the antisocial malefactors, prostitutes, beggars, traffic offenders, homosexuals, found themselves. Now, though, it’s likely to be one of the newer camps and one much nearer to Berlin. Sachsenhausen, at a guess.’