Joe put his hands in his pockets, ran his fingers round the balls of fluff that had gathered in the corners, fished them out again. Rubbed his fingers together. Shifted his weight from his left foot to his right. He had no idea who this man was, or whether he was the man to see. Perhaps he was the secretary. He had that kind of indifferent air. Joe coughed.

‘Excuse me,’ Joe said. ‘Can you help?’

The man looked up, glowered, said nothing. There was a large, round clock on the wall, the hours marked in grand Roman letters. Two o’clock. German time. One o’clock, old time. Dinner time. Joe wasn’t hungry, but he wanted the lavatory. Dared not ask the German at the desk, excuse me, may I use your WC?

The telephone rang, jarring in the silence. The man looked up. ‘Go through.’ He pointed to another door.

Joe nodded. He walked towards it, knocked quietly, went in.

Colonel Knackfuss himself was standing there in the centre of the room. Hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. He was taller than Joe remembered him, beefier, too. He waited until Joe had entered the room.

‘You are enquiring about a nurse,’ he said.

The timbre in his voice said it all.

Joe rubbed his neck, fingers on the welt left by the strap when Knackfuss had ripped his binoculars off him. Tough leather, cutting into his flesh, sharp as a whiplash. Snapped like string. Knackfuss was holding the glasses up to the window, adjusting the sights.

‘Not bad,’ he said, lowering them and turning to Joe. ‘But not good, either.’ Threw them onto the tiled floor.

Joe was about to say, Please, but Knackfuss was grinding his heel on the tube, pressing down with all his weight. Joe heard the lens pop free and shatter into tiny shards which spilled across the floor. He stared at the debris. The only possession he really cared about, had ever cared about. I don’t have use for these. Not now. Colonel Waring had taken his life a week later. He was still a young man.

‘I will ask you again, what business do you have with this nurse?’ Knackfuss said.

Joe didn’t know what to do. He never thought he’d be interrogated, treated as if he was a criminal.

‘A friend,’ Joe said. ‘She was just a friend. I thought she could help.’

‘Help?’

‘With Geoffrey and the nurse,’ Joe said. Knackfuss raised an eyebrow, ran his tongue over his teeth, not interested.

‘You arrested them,’ Joe went on. ‘But they haven’t done a thing. You have to let them go.’

‘Your friend,’ Knackfuss said, ignoring Joe. ‘What did you do with your German friend?’ He emphasised the word, made it something dirty. ‘And those.’ He pointed at the broken binoculars.

‘Birds,’ Joe said. ‘We watched birds.’