We headed out towards Frankfurt, taking small lanes to avoid the delays on the crater-heavy autobahn. It was mid-morning now, and the lines of refugees tramping across the fields, either on their way to DP camps or simply foraging for food, had grown. On the outskirts of the city, we took a turning into deep woods and kept going.

I breathed in the fresh air and tried to fix the moment in my mind: the birdsong, the smell of the trees, the strange emptiness of the sunlit ruined land. The engine stopped. We walked into the middle of a clearing and Father handed me the Luger. I released the safety and pressed the muzzle against the back of Shashkevich’s pale neck. The coldness of it woke him up, and the fear came over him in a rush. His hands started shaking violently and I had to clutch him towards me to restrain him. I called out to him in a voice that sounded surer than the one in my head to stop moving or I would shoot. It was an absurd thing to say, because by now he knew I was going to shoot him anyway, and something in me realized this, but I suddenly couldn’t stomach the position I was in, shooting him from so close. Without even considering it, I let go of him and stepped away, at the same time jerking one of his arms towards me so that he swivelled around as though it were a ballet. It all took place very fast, and contrary to everything we had planned - we hadn’t considered the possibility he might lose control. Shashkevich’s hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and his eyes were staring out of his skull like a maniac’s. I thought hard of the photographs I had seen in the dossier and squeezed the trigger.

‘Pockets,’ said Pritchard after. ‘Don’t forget his pockets.’

I leaned down and ripped away some papers and trinkets, then handed them to Father and staggered off into the trees.