There was only one thing to be done: he had to pray.

Not even bothering to remove his slippers and put on his snow boots, he ran from his house to the church. As he opened the great doors, he knew he had made a terrible error. Two men were waiting for him, standing by the ancient font. One of the men was Kalt. The other man, a great deal larger and bulkier, also looked like Gestapo; he had the coarseness of a bull and a face that appeared as though it had never once smiled. Even as Huber shrank back into the doorway, his eyes couldn’t help straying to the font. Why was it full of water? He hadn’t left it like that. There hadn’t been a baptism for weeks, not since September when the little Lang boy had been brought here.

‘Ah, Father Huber,’ Kalt said. ‘This is my colleague, Herr Brunner.’

Huber clasped his hands together and bowed his head, trying to maintain his habitual humility.

‘Grüss Gott, Herr Brunner.’

The new man, Brunner, said nothing. Without a word, he manoeuvred himself behind the priest. Huber’s neck swivelled from one man to another. He realised he was shaking uncontrollably.

‘Herr Brunner is my assistant.’

‘It is a pleasure to meet you both, but as I have already said, I cannot help you gentlemen.’

‘We have a question for you,’ Kalt continued. ‘Could you please tell us the full name and address of the woman you called in Berlin not five minutes ago? We will have her details soon enough, but you could save us precious time.’

‘Please, Herr Kalt, I know nothing of the girl you seek. Or any woman in Berlin.’

Hans Brunner grasped him by the nape of the neck and pushed his face down into the font. The water was deep enough to accommodate a man’s head, and cold. Huber’s arms flailed helplessly. Kalt grabbed his wrists and restrained them. Huber was struggling to hold in his breath, to keep his lungs from filling with water, but Brunner and Kalt were too strong for him. Together they held him there, mouth and nose submerged, for a full minute, before wrenching him out again, as water sprayed across the ancient stone floor. Huber gasped for air. Brunner turned his nose up and his broad pig’s nostrils flared.

‘He stinks. I think the holy bastard’s shat himself.’

Otto Kalt laughed. ‘This is just wasting time. Finish him off. We’ll find the woman in Berlin soon enough.’

Just under four minutes later, Father Peter Huber’s body slid to the floor. He was dead, drowned in his own font. Brunner looked at the corpse dispassionately.

‘Do you think we should search his house, too?’

Kalt looked at his partner with the forbearance of a kind and tolerant parent to an idiot son of whom little was expected.

‘Yes, Hans, that would make a lot of sense. And we should search his woman’s house, too, I think.’

‘And what should we do with the woman?’