‘Luck. Pure bloody luck, Sunny. I thought I was done for.’ He handed the clothes to her. ‘I’ll explain all as we walk. First, you two had better slip behind a tree and get the young lady dressed. Then the faster we move on, the better. The good news is, I’ve got a bit of food.’

His relief was tempered with shock. That had been a great deal too close; he had acted recklessly. One more mistake like that and they would all be done for.

*

Romy had no idea where she was or where to go. Her whole body was racked with pain. Soon after getting away from the farmhouse, she had run full on into a tree and had fallen, unconscious, into a bed of leaves. When she came to, her forehead throbbing, she did not know how long she had been there, and she had lost all sense of direction.

She thought of her impending death. She had loved every day of her old life, bringing children into the world. It was always her tragedy that she had been unable to have children of her own, a failing that had brought her marriage to an end. Franzchen was a weak man and he had wanted children more than he had wanted her.

Rising to her feet, she flexed her shoulders and neck, then ran again until she fell again, exhausted, in the lee of a hedge close to a village which had no name post. Not that knowing the name of the village would have helped her. She didn’t even know whether she had travelled east, west, north or south. If only she could find some way of cutting her wrists free of the cords that seemed to bite deeper into her flesh with each passing minute.

Bound like this, she couldn’t even get on to a bus or train without arousing instant suspicion. The police would be called – and what would they do with her then?

Here, beneath the hedge, she slept fitfully. The pain in her head and neck only exceeded by the nightmare of her fingers where the nails had been drawn out one by one.

As morning grew lighter, she got up again.

Would anyone help her – or would they hand her back to the farmwife and her husband? She had no idea who these people were or what sway they held in this district. If they worked for Martin Bormann, then they must have influence. She had the knife, but no way of applying it to the bindings. Several times, she buried the handle in the earth and sat with her back to it, pressing the knot between her wrists against the blade, but the knife just fell away. She tried the same thing with the blade against the trunk of a tree, but she couldn’t hold the blade steady enough to saw at the knotted cords.

‘Good day, Fräulein.’