Rieger nodded slowly. ‘More likely thrown. Those filthy bastards.’ His Adam’s apple was moving, as though he were struggling to contain his emotions. ‘I heard nothing, so I feared . . . the worst.’ The tears in his eyes were bright in the dawn light. Then he seemed to steel himself. ‘That is for later. Now we must move. Follow me – I hear and see them. I think they have heard us for they are starting to come this way – two armed men.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘I am drawing them away from Klara. Over the years I have made it my business to know every centimetre of these woods – and so I deliberately snap a small branch or make some other small sound, and they follow me instead of her. Come.’

Matthias Rieger moved eastwards, towards the rising light. He was bent forward, like an animal. He might not have been young, but he moved smoothly and it was clear to Wilde that he was telling no more than the truth when he said he knew these woods well. Now and then he stopped and urged them forward.

‘Look back – over there. They are lost, but we must carry on.’

‘What of Klara? Where is she?’

‘All in good time, when it is safe. She knows what she is doing. We have rehearsed this on many occasions.’

‘Does she know why she has to hide?’

‘No. Only that there are dangerous men in the world. She believes every child is given this secret escape route by her parents, for that is what I have told her. Now then, you must have come by car – where is it?’

*

Romy Dietrich lay quietly in a pitch–dark room, her hands still tightly bound and her ankles retied so harshly that they were beginning to feel numb. But she was still alive, which surprised her. Did they really think she might be related to Sepp Dietrich? Was there a slight chance she might be spared because of it? Logic told her not – that the opposite was probably true, that they wouldn’t dare keep her alive if they thought for a moment that she could denounce them to one of Hitler’s most senior men. The only reason she was alive was that Otto Kalt wasn’t certain she had told him the truth about Klara’s whereabouts. If they didn’t find her, they would return and torture her more; if they did get to Klara, then they would come back to finish her off.

Frau Kalt was an obedient wife. She had fed the prisoner cabbage soup as ordered and had then thrown straw onto the floor as a bed for her prisoner. Obedient to a fault, perhaps, but not the cleverest. Yes, she had bound her captive hand and foot – her husband’s final instruction, received in bovine silence like every other communication – but she had not tied her prisoner to anything. After a while, lying in agony in the dark, the realisation hit Romy like a sudden shaft of light. She tried moving and discovered that, with great difficulty and constant pain, she could propel herself forward by bending her knees and extending her elbows.