Wilde said nothing. His head was still pounding from the blow delivered by Jung. He had been brought to this cottage twenty minutes or half an hour from Cambridge. He had no idea where they were or even which direction they had gone, because he had been kept face down in the footwell the whole journey.

Once here, he had been marched down a footpath to this lonely little house and had been forced to take off his coat, jacket, tie, shirt, shoes and socks. He supposed it was a small mercy that he had not been made to go naked; perhaps that was in deference to an old woman’s sensibilities.

What would come next, he had no idea.

Jung released Wilde’s throat and took Mrs Vickery by the arm.

‘Leave him to stew awhile.’ He marched the old woman downstairs. ‘We need results fast,’ he said.

‘Well, Mr Young, I would say that heat and fire are where pain and panic lies. And eyes – anything to do with the eyes must inspire fear.’ She shivered. ‘The very thought of someone sticking a pin in your eye, dear – bursting it like a balloon. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. But I do have a good selection of needles and pins in my darning box, should you consider that to be the way to go.’

Charlie Jung nodded. This woman . . . how had Bormann found her? God, he had a talent for the dark side.

‘Fire and needles?’

‘And shall I bring you a cup of tea?’

‘Bring the address book. Wherever they are, it must be in there.’

‘Well, if it is, it’s not very obvious, dear.’

No. They were looking for someone called Harry, but almost all the surnames came with initials, and at least twenty initials were H. Nor was there any sign of an address with the word Trin or Trinity in it. Except one – Professor Taylor (no initial or first name), then just the one word, Trinity V, and a telephone number. Was that Staircase V in the college? Was there such a thing? They tried calling the number in the book, but it was dead. If Klara was somehow hidden within rooms at Trinity College or Trinity Hall, she would be difficult to find.

They needed information, but time was short. The police and intelligence services would be all over the houses at Harkham and Girton by now. And what if Mrs Vickery was under surveillance? Transmitters could be traced.

Jung felt the net closing in.

*

Wilde’s eyes were open, observing his captors closely. He tried to recall all he had learned during his intensive few days of training before going to Germany:

Talk to your captors. Become a human being to them. Delay them. Unsettle them.