‘Whoa!’ There was no amusement now in Fritz’s voice. ‘That’s not just a favour, Max. That’s a request that could end up with someone being shot—and that someone would be me. What happens when headquarters in Berlin ask for the prisoner to be sent to them?’

‘You say he died while being questioned. You can do it, Fritz. But you have to do it now, immediately, or Lotti will be dead.’

‘Lotti?’ Fritz sat up so sharply a pillow tumbled to the floor. ‘Lotti Lennartz?’

‘The very one. I’ll be so grateful if you get her out of Gestapo hands that I’ll give you all my worldly wealth—and that’s a lot, Fritz. Lotti will be so grateful she’ll give you whatever you want—and I’ll turn a blind eye.’

Fritz chuckled. He was being offered Lotti Lennartz on a plate and all for the sake of a phone call.

‘Leave it with me,’ he said. ‘Pulling a fast one over those snobbish bastards in Berlin will give me great satisfaction.’

The line clicked and Max replaced the receiver on the hook with shaking hands. That there was no way Lotti would repay Fritz with sexual favours went without saying—and what Fritz’s reaction would then be was anybody’s guess. For the moment, though, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that whatever fiendish torture she was undergoing ceased immediately. All that mattered was that she was released. And all that mattered in the future was that she knew he loved her—and that he would love her always and for ever.

The ringing of the telephone reverberated around the small, stone-floored room. Lotti’s interrogator answered it, and as he did so, one of the men fastened the last strap across her legs. He was bending down to the box with the wires protruding from it when the interrogator raised a hand, forestalling him.

‘Yes, Major,’ he said, sounding startled. ‘Yes, of course. At once.’ And then, before putting the receiver back on its rest, he added, ‘Heil Hitler.’

He switched off the arc light and opened the door. ‘You may not have thought this was your lucky day, Fraülein Lennartz,’ he said drily, ‘but let me assure you that it is. It’s possibly the luckiest day you will ever know.’

To the two men waiting for further orders he said merely, ‘She is to be released. The man who made the phone call to the Wasserman house is undergoing questioning in Munich. He’ll be transferred here in the morning. Goodnight, gentlemen.

Heil Hitler.’

When the straps were unbuckled and she was allowed to get off the table, her legs would barely support her. One-handedly and in agonizing pain, she struggled back into the clothes that had been torn from her. Who the man was in Munich who had falsely admitted to making the phone call she had made, she didn’t know. She only hoped and prayed that it wasn’t Max.

At the thought that it was Max, that this was something Max was doing in order to save her, she paused in her struggle to put on her dress. She couldn’t let Max sacrifice himself for her.