The captain informed them that once out of Swedish airspace they would be cutting south-west across the open waters of the Skagerrak between Norway and Denmark, and so long as they didn’t meet any enemy interference there, it should be plain sailing across the North Sea.

Six hours later, they landed at RAF Leuchars on the east coast of Scotland, near the town of St Andrews. It was 6 a.m., still dark outside and Klara was groggy.

‘We’re here, Klara,’ Wilde said. ‘This is Scotland – have you heard of Scotland?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, waking up in a rush. ‘I’ve told you, I’m not stupid. Am I going to live here, then?’

‘That’s still to be decided. First we need to take you down into England, and we can discuss your future. But you can be sure that everyone here is your friend.’

‘The Führer says England is our enemy.’

‘Well, perhaps the Führer is not right about everything,’ Sunny continued. ‘You’re safe now – no one here wants to hurt you.’

Why, Wilde wondered, was that an assurance he was reluctant to give?

Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

From the outside, no one would have guessed that the Old Rectory was the most important of the Secret Intelligence Service’s safe houses. The gardens were skeletal now, but in summer climbing roses blossomed in profusion across the whole of the front wall and the scent of lavender filled the air.

It sat at the entrance to a short lane which led to the thirteenth-century All Saints Church in the village of Harkham, halfway between Cambridge and Saffron Walden. Inside the house, there was nothing to set it apart from any other English country cottage.

The villagers, however, knew there was something unusual about the place. Too many comings and goings, too many men in pinstriped suits and military uniforms for them not to realise something out of the ordinary was going on there. ‘Men from the ministry’ was about as far as they would go in speculation, because the villagers knew when to keep their mouths shut. They might laugh and gossip about the place among themselves, referring to it as ‘the funny farm’, but they would never mention it to anyone outside Harkham, nor would they take kindly to questions from strangers.

At the end of a long and meandering train journey southward from Scotland, a local taxi was waiting for Tom, Sunny and Klara at Harkham railway station and they were driven, exhausted, to the front door of the cottage. For Wilde it was a return to the place where his German had been polished by the stern-faced Mrs Rosamund Kemp. Today, as she welcomed them on the doorstep, she was smiling.

‘Ah, Professor Wilde, so good to see you back safe and sound. And it is my pleasure to be able to call you by your real name at last, and in English.’

‘Good to see you, too, Mrs Kemp.’