‘Go back to the car,’ Wilde whispered. ‘You’ll be safer there.’

‘No, please,’ Sunny begged. ‘I don’t want to be on my own. I . . . I wasn’t expecting anything like this.’

‘OK, then we work our way through the woods towards the back of the house. But we mustn’t make a sound. Do you understand?’

She nodded.

‘I’ll go ahead – ten metres ahead. If I’m discovered, if there’s a shot or voices, then you stop where you are, stay in the undergrowth and remain very, very still. No reason for us both to get killed.’

The first glimmerings of sunrise had lit the bare trunks and branches. They could see where they were going through the gaunt mass of trees, but it also meant that they could be seen. The ground was covered with a thick layer of dried leaves, which made moving silently almost impossible. But after several agonising minutes, Wilde reached the back of the house. He waited for Sunny to catch him up. The back door of the house was open and light was streaming out. It looked as if someone had left in a hurry.

Suddenly he gasped, feeling a hand on his shoulder.

CHAPTER 10

‘Sshh, schweigen Sie,’ a voice said, low and insistent. ‘Bleib ruhig.’

Keep quiet . . . Stay calm.

Wilde turned in an instant, his hand reaching for the man’s throat, before stopping himself. Barefoot and wearing woollen pyjamas, the man he saw in front of him was old and grey.

‘Die Bewaffneten sind dort drüben.’ He was pointing to the right – to the west. The gunmen are over there.

‘Herr Rieger?’

He nodded and put a finger to his lips. ‘Sshh.’ Then he sank into a crouch, urging Wilde and Sunny to do likewise with the flat of his hand. ‘Who are you?’ he asked in German.

‘Friends. We came to warn you,’ Sunny said. ‘But too late, it seems.’

‘I can see you are not with the gunmen. But I ask again, who are you?’

‘I am Frau Somerfeld, this is Monsieur Sable. But we are all in grave danger, Herr Rieger.’

‘We are safe for the moment – they are four hundred metres away.’

He turned to Wilde and began talking in rapid French. Wilde’s blank expression gave him away immediately.

‘You are not French,’ Rieger said. ‘I am a languages teacher – I know the look on a boy’s face when he cannot understand me.’

There was no use pretending.

‘He’s American,’ Sunny said. ‘We discovered there was a threat to Klara. We are here to help you get her to safety.’

Rieger nodded. He gripped Wilde’s arm.

‘Please, can I ask you . . . you have been in the house. Did you see Maria, my wife? I had to leave her to save the child.’

For Wilde’s benefit, he had switched languages to perfect, though accented, English.

He didn’t want to distress the old man, but Wilde had no option.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘She is dead. It looks as though she fell down the stairs.’