‘Dispose of her, Hans. Turn her to ash.’

CHAPTER 2

The three engines droned. Thousands of feet below the Junkers trimotor transport plane, the rocky plains and hills of Spain were yellow and parched. The man in the third row gazed from the small porthole and tried to imagine what was to come in Berlin. His instructions had been brief: he was to go to Germany and collect a package. The order had come from on high, via a man named Bodie Cashbone.

A package. What sort of package?

‘I have no further details to give you at this stage.’ Bodie Cashbone had sat back and folded his meaty arms. ‘You’ll find out when you get there.’ He’d leant forward. ‘All I know is that it’s straightforward, but . . .’ He’d tailed off and shrugged.

Straightforward? How, in the late autumn of 1941 with Europe at war, could any secret mission to Germany be straightforward?

‘Why me?’ he had demanded. ‘I’ve never been to the country before. I speak the language well enough – but no one would take me for a German.’

‘You’re not meant to be a German. You are Mr Tomas Esser, an American citizen of German heritage, a sympathetic businessman. That should get you in to Germany, but it won’t help you if you’re caught. This is off the books. Washington will not own you.’

‘But they’ll know I’ve come from England. They’ll suspect me immediately.’

‘No, they’ll think you’ve travelled from America. It’s all been arranged.’

‘And how will I get out?’

‘You’ll have assistance. Failing that, I’m told you have a very big brain,’ Cashbone had said. ‘You’ll find a way.’

*

Ten days earlier Tom Wilde – the man now posing as Tomas Esser – had been in his rooms preparing a lecture on the Elizabethan world view for the handful of history undergraduates remaining in Cambridge. In the real world, history was happening – even Cambridge had been bombed – so what, he wondered, was the point in teaching it?

He pushed the papers away, stretched his arms and leant back. Rubbing his tired eyes, he got up and pulled back the blackouts. Outside it was daylight and he realised he’d lost track of time. From his window he looked out on the bleak and chilly scene of the old court, disfigured by a shed full of armaments at one end and a massive air-raid shelter dug into the other. The only bright spot was the family of ducks that had taken up residence in the unsightly water tank that occupied much of the lawn in the centre of the court.

Yawning, Professor Wilde packed up his things, descended the staircase and came out into the crisp autumn air. As he crossed into the new court, he nodded to the master, who was emerging from the lodge with a couple of pinstriped men who looked as though they belonged to one of the ministries that had been evacuated here from London. And then he saw Scobie, the head porter, coming towards him.