‘What?’ Wilde’s thoughts were elsewhere. In the darkness, he hadn’t seen the little old lady approaching him and now he looked at her with puzzled irritation. ‘I’m sorry, I’m in a terrible hurry.’

‘It really won’t take you a moment, dear – I just need to lift a box out of the back seat of my car and I can’t quite manage it. I’ll be all right after that.’

It wasn’t worth arguing about.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘But then I have to dash.’

‘Oh, you are a dear,’ she said. ‘The car’s just there at the side of the road. Once I’ve got the box out I’m sure I’ll be fine. If not, someone else will help me.’

Wilde followed the woman to the car. She was small and bent, could barely have weighed more than a child. She opened the rear door for him, then stood back.

‘There it is, dear. If you could just lift it out for me . . .’

He stepped past her and peered in. There was nothing there. He was turning back towards her, confused, when the blow hit him on the side of the head, knocking him almost senseless.

He was a boxer. In his mind, he was in the ring, but he was on the floor, scrabbling for purchase, and the referee was counting. He felt himself flailing as he was bundled into the back of the car, then pushed down onto the floor head first.

Someone was getting in beside him and he felt a weight on his back, rendering him immobile in the cramped space.

‘There’s a gun at your head, Mr Wilde. Don’t try to move.’

He couldn’t move. A man’s foot was pressing on his spine and cold metal was pushed into his skull. Through the mist he recognised the voice. Charles Young.

*

Charlie Jung had never been trained in the dark art of torture, yet how difficult could it be to make a man talk? Professor Wilde was stretched out on a bare metal bedstead. His naked back rested on cold bed springs and his wrists and ankles were tied to the iron bedposts with thick cord.

It was a cosy little room with dainty floral curtains. The mattress had been removed from the bed and placed against the pretty papered walls, close to a Victorian watercolour of a rose garden.

Jung’s face was inches from Wilde’s. His right hand gripped his captive by the throat.

‘You know what we want, Wilde, and we will get it from you. So tell us where we can find Klara Rieger, and save yourself a great deal of pain.’