‘Can I have a sip of water, please? If I had water, I could talk.’

Kalt nodded to Brunner, who turned and trudged off without question.

‘Brunner will fetch you water and you shall have a sip for every word of the address that you speak to me. Now, let me have the first one – the city where she lives. Is it Berlin? Munich? Essen? Stuttgart, perhaps?’

‘Kossertheim.’

She had said the name so quietly that Kalt did not hear it properly, but he realised she had said something.

‘What was that?’

‘Kossertheim,’ she said again.

Brunner had returned with a beaker of water. Kalt took it from him and fed a few drops to Romy with his fingers.

‘Does that help? Now speak more clearly. Spell the name, because I cannot understand what you are saying.’

She said the name of the village again.

‘Did you say Kossertheim?’ he asked

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t think I have heard of it.’

‘Village,’ she said. What was the point in stopping now? They would find Kossertheim eventually. ‘Not far from Berlin.’

‘That wasn’t so difficult, was it? Now tell me where I will find her within this village – and what name she goes by now.’

‘More water. Please, at least untie me.’

‘As you wish.’ He turned to the other man. ‘Herr Brunner, if you would be so good.’

The bigger man grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. She screamed with pain as her other hand, with the nails missing, scraped across the filthy stone floor. She had no strength in her arms since being hung from the wall. The cramp had been excruciating.

Kalt pulled up a three-legged stool and Brunner sat her down on it. They helped her to drink the rest of the water. Kalt’s fat wife had shuffled up behind the two men and was watching them with cold eyes.

‘Now,’ Kalt said. ‘I have done more for you than I promised. So it is time for you to keep your side of the bargain, Frau Dietrich.’

‘Her name is Klara Rieger. She lives with adopted parents, Matthias and Maria Rieger. The old farm on Schorfheidestrasse. But she knows nothing of her birth – just kill me. That’s all you need do.’

‘I fear that’s out of my hands, Frau Dietrich.’

‘I beg you, sir, do not hurt the child. Do not cause her pain.’

Kalt smiled. ‘Do you take us for brutes, Frau Dietrich? Of course we would not do such a thing to a child. But tell me – your name, Dietrich. Are you by any chance related to Sepp Dietrich? SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Dietrich?’

‘Yes, he is my cousin. My father was his father’s first cousin. We lived close to him in Bavaria. We always called him Uncle Sepp – but he was a cousin, not an uncle.’

The words spilled out, but none of it was true – it was just something that they had joked about when first they heard of Hitler’s highly esteemed bodyguard. Dietrich was a common enough name, of course, and the part of Austria where she was born and raised was but a few kilometres from Sepp Dietrich’s homeland, so who knew? Perhaps, just perhaps, it might help. What harm could it do? She was already as good as dead.