Although barely in my twenties, I was already an old hand at the spy game, having been attached to several cloak-and-dagger units over the course of the war. This was something else entirely - an execution squad, pure and simple - and the war in this part of the world was meant to be over. But as I looked into Father’s grim face flickering in the candlelight, I knew I had no choice in the matter, and shook my head meekly.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘We start tomorrow - Henry’s located Shashkevich.’

It was a beautiful morning. The air was crisp and clean, and the fields seemed almost to be glowing as the sunlight travelled across them. Somehow it made what we were about to do even worse. Father had briefed me on the day’s job, but he hadn’t told me how I would feel: as we cut our way through the countryside, a chasm of despair opened up in my stomach and I became terrified I would have to ask him to stop driving so I could vomit. For the first time in my life, I felt like a child playing at soldiers.

When we reached the camp, the guard on duty hardly glanced at our papers, waving us through at the sight of our jeep. In the central reception hall, Pritchard showed our papers again and we were led through to an area of stone cell blocks. A young Ami corporal marched us down a dimly lit corridor, unlocked one of the doors, saluted us, and marched away again without a word.

Shashkevich was seated on the bed, shivering under a rough grey blanket despite the morning sun filtering through the small window set high in one wall. He was still a large man, but the imperious-looking officer of the photographs in his dossier had been all but extinguished. His eyes were now deeply sunken and his skin pitted and sallow. He looked up at us, confusion spreading across his face as he registered our uniforms and berets. He wasn’t shivering, I realized then, but rocking back and forth and mumbling something to himself in his own language. Whether he was reciting a prayer, a list of everyone he had ever met to keep his mind active or the defence he planned to use when he reached court I do not know.

Father told him to get up in Russian, and the fear turned to defiance.

‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘Get up,’ Father repeated, gesturing with his Luger.

After he and Pritchard had cuffed him, I held the door open as they marched him into the hallway and out to the jeep.