For a moment she seemed to have lost the power of speech and then she pointed a shaking finger at him and the words came tumbling out.

‘I know now why I was afraid of you, where I’ve seen you before. When I was a kid in Hamburg during the war, I had a cousin just like you, same white face, same eyes that looked through you like glass. He was in the Gestapo. When the end came, a mob hung him from a lamp post at the end of our street.’

‘Ben,’ Nick said. ‘Where is he, Wilma? I only want a chat with him. He’s done nothing wrong, yet.’

‘You could put a white-hot poker on my feet and I wouldn’t tell you. He’s the only man ever treated me like a human being in my life.’

Nick shrugged. ‘That’s too bad. That means I’ll have to take you in for questioning. You’ll miss your train.’

Her face went very white, the mouth slack and she stared stupidly at him. ‘But if I miss my train, Sammy will catch up with me again. He’ll bring me back.’

Her head moved slowly from side to side and Nick said patiently, ‘All you have to do is tell me where Ben was going when he left here.’

The strange thing was that she genuinely didn’t know and yet an inner pride, a strength she had never realized she possessed before, refused to allow her to betray the man who had helped her.

She swallowed the tears and her chin tilted. ‘All right, so we go to the station.’

Nick sighed heavily and nodded. ‘That’s right, Wilma. The railway station. Come on. I’ll give you a lift in my car.’

She stared at him incredulously, then snatched up her case and pushed round him. ‘I’d rather ride with the devil.’

He followed her along the dark passage, down the steps into the yard and reached for her shoulder as she turned into the street beside his car.

‘Don’t be a fool, Wilma. I can have you there in a couple of minutes. There’s a train at twelve twenty. We’ll just make it.’

‘Take your hands off me.’ She pulled away. ‘From now on, I walk alone.’ Her face was yellow in the lamplight and full of hate as she gazed up at him. ‘English police, Gestapo, what’s the difference? You don’t give a damn who gets hurt as long as you find out what you want to know. I hope Ben Garvald cracks your skull.’

She spat on the pavement at his feet, turned and walked away, the case banging against her leg, her high heels clicking on the hollow pavement, fading into the night. Nick stood there gazing into the darkness. After a while, he got back into the Mini-Cooper and drove away.