I nodded. “Yes, that’s a good idea,” I told the prisoner. “Find out what this wanted man’s done, and if it turns out to be rather less heinous than what you did yourself, then put your hands up for it. Why not? I can see how you could think that might work.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gunther. I’ve spent the last nine years in a Russian POW camp. Whatever it is I’m supposed to have done, I reckon I’ve paid for it several times over.”

“As if I care.”

“I demand to know this man’s name,” said Vigée.

“How about it?” I told the prisoner. “We both know you’re not Richard Kettenacher. I suppose you stole his pay book and just swapped the photograph on the inside cover—stuck it on with some egg white. Russians didn’t usually pay too much attention to the corner stamps. You figured a new name and a different service would keep the dogs off your trail, because after Treblinka you knew that someone would be coming to look for you. You and Irmfried Eberl, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Neither do I,” complained Vigée. “And I’m beginning to get irritated.”

“Permit me to introduce you, Émile. This is Major Paul Kestner. Formerly of the SS and deputy commander of the Treblinka death camp in Poland.”

“Rubbish,” said Kestner. “Rubbish. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“At least he was until Himmler found out about what he was doing there. Even he was horrified by what he and the commandant had been up to. Theft, murder, torture. Isn’t that right, Paul? So horrified that you and Eberl were kicked out of the SS, which is how you found yourself in the Wehrmacht, defending Berlin, trying to redeem yourself for your earlier crimes.”

“Nonsense,” said Kestner.

“You may not have Edgard de Boudel in custody, Émile, but you do have one of the worst war criminals in Europe. A man who is responsible for the deaths of at least three quarters of a million Jews and Gypsies.”

“Rubbish. Rubbish. And don’t think I’m unaware of what this is really about, Gunther. It’s about Paris, isn’t it? June 1940.”

Vigée frowned. “What about it?”

“He tried to have me murdered,” I said.

“I knew it,” said Kestner.

Vigée nodded at the door. “Outside,” he told me. “I need to speak with you.”

I followed him out of the wine cellar, up the stairs, and into the little walled garden by the canal. Vigée lit us each a cigarette.

“Paul Kestner, huh?”

I nodded. “I imagine the UN War Crimes Commission will be pleased to have him in custody,” I said.