‘Where is Klara?’ Wilde asked.

‘All being well, she should be four kilometres from here, to the north-east, by a lake. There is a jetty there. She is near there, close to a very large oak, in a cave beneath a concealed trapdoor. I learned about digging trenches and hides on the Western Front. Were you there, Monsieur Sable?’

Wilde hadn’t been. He had been in America, safe, while his English public school friends were being called up and marched off to the murderous battlefields. He sometimes thought his shame would never be absolved. Perhaps now was his chance.

‘Where shall we meet you?’

‘You won’t. They don’t know who you are. But me? They can find out everything about me from the village. People talk – they are scared not to. I do not know who you are, but I have no choice but to trust you and so I must pray that Klara will be in good hands with you. I have taught her languages. Her English is good. When you have her in a place of real safety, perhaps you will find some way to let me know.’

His words hung in the cool morning air. Would he still be alive to receive such news?

‘No, come with us. She will be waiting for you.’

The elderly schoolteacher smiled and shook his head sadly.

‘I must stay with Maria.’

Wilde took Herr Rieger’s hands between his own. He was a man he would like to have known better, to have talked with over a few glasses of whisky or schnapps.

‘I’m sorry, Herr Rieger. Truly. If only we had arrived earlier . . .’

‘Oh, you know, it really would have made no difference.’ Rieger managed a sad smile and squeezed Wilde’s hands back. ‘Maria was too ill to run.’

Sunny had been hanging back. Now she crept forward. Rieger took her hands as Wilde had taken his.

‘And you, dear lady, my heartfelt thanks go with you for what you are trying to do.’

‘We will need precise instructions if we are to find your daughter, Herr Rieger,’ she said.

Her voice, so confident back in Potsdam, was tremulous now. Perhaps unsurprising, given the events in the house and this deadly cat-and-mouse game in the woods.

‘You must get to the road and go still further northwards – a thousand five hundred metres further, all the while staying in the trees for cover in case of passing traffic. You will see a woodland path on your right. It is unsigned, but there is a cross – a small wooden cross nailed to a tree to mark the way. Take the path and stay on it until you come to a lake. On the southern bank, two hundred metres from the western extremity, there is the jetty I mentioned. It is old and ruined. Look directly south and you will see the oak tree. It is much larger than anything else in the area, a little way into the woods from the lakeside, and it is marked with another cross, this time carved into the bark, at a height of two metres. The hide is on the far side of the tree at a distance of three metres. The top of the trapdoor has a camouflage of leaves and other woodland detritus. If you were not looking for it, you would not see it. But you will be looking for it.’