‘Hang on, why would you—’

‘I’m a draughtsman, Mister Churchill. Are you a draughtsman?’

‘No.’

‘What do you do?’

‘I work in an office, actually.’

‘Ha! Your map will look like a child’s drawing of a bus. Mine will look like a map of Peenemünde: I’ll even be able to give it a sense of scale.’

Two days later, Alain had finished his map. To Prince it looked like a masterpiece: accurate and clear. The northern tip of Usedom, where Peenemünde was located, was shaped like a thick cucumber. Alain had drawn the airfield in its north-western corner, with the power station below it on the banks of the River Peene. Just inland from there was the liquid oxygen plant, and then on the north-eastern tip of the island the main rocket test-firing area. Below that, on the Baltic coast, was the experimental works, just above the V-2 production works. South of the V-2 production area and closer to the Baltic coast was the housing estate and the army barracks. ‘Make sure you mark that properly,’ Émile instructed Alain. ‘We want as many of those bastards killed as possible.’ At the southern end of the camp, less than two miles from Zempin, was Trassenheide, the camp where the foreign slave labourers were housed: the camp where they were now.

When it was complete, they all gathered round to admire it. Émile pointed to Trassenheide. ‘If your RAF bomb us, Mister Churchill, I’ll kill you!’

Chapter 17

Berlin; Copenhagen, January 1943

It was a complete bloody mess.

There was no other way Kriminaldirektor Frank could describe the situation, with the possible exception of saying it was a complete fucking mess, but the president of the police in Berlin, Gruppenführer von Helldorf, had quite a Lutheran streak, and there was a limit to what kind of language he’d tolerate.

It was the middle of January: Oberst Albert Kampmann had been shot on Wednesday 2 December – six weeks previously – and died in the early hours of the following morning. Since then, the Gestapo had insisted that this was their case. They’d assured everyone they’d solve it very soon: this was a sensitive political issue, almost certainly involving matters of espionage and state security. No other organisation had the ability to investigate the Oberst’s case or could be trusted to do so.

But as December turned into January and the irritation of those who mattered increased, it became evident that the Gestapo had no idea what they were doing. So von Helldorf was instructed to put his best man on the case. These were the circumstances that had led to Gunther Frank of the Kripo – the criminal police – sitting in von Helldorf’s office on a bitterly cold Tuesday morning. Von Helldorf’s secretary had attempted to light a fire, but after a few failed attempts he told her not to bother.

‘You’re not too cold, are you, Frank?’