They went through small bedrooms, bathrooms and anterooms. Almost everything in the Führer’s office had been broken apart and the stink of decay assailed the nostrils. His writing table had been upended. All the rooms still contained various articles of furniture – single beds, bunks, sodden carpets, overturned wardrobes and chests – their drawers all turned out and anything of immediate use such as cigarettes or brandy looted. Finally, Boris Minsky opened the door to Hitler’s private sitting room.

It was remarkably small and undistinguished for a man who had wielded such power. Maybe fifteen feet by ten at the most. A door on one side led to a basic water closet and on the far side another door led to an oppressively cramped bedroom, little more than a cell with a single, metal-sprung bed. In the sitting room, there was a sofa, three chairs, a little writing desk and a table. The sofa was ranged against the rear wall. It was wooden framed with padded back, seat and armrests. Wilde held his hurricane lamp close to see the pattern; some Germanic folk scene of hunters or minstrels and a pair of fawns. He looked for bloodstains but couldn’t see any.

‘Just between the two of us, I have heard that the woman, Eva Braun, was slumped on the seat, her head to one side. They say she had taken a prussic acid capsule,’ Minsky said.

Yes, that was what Wilde had been told by Philip Eaton in London, though he had not explained his source.

‘And Hitler?’

‘Where are they, the pistols?’

‘Who knows? I expect they’re in some soldier’s pack. He probably thinks he has the gun that shot Hitler and will hand them down to his children and grandchildren. Hah, the gun that Hitler put to his temple! A bit of history, eh, Professor?’

‘Was it not the mouth rather than the temple?’

‘Günsche says temple. Anyway, we simply don’t believe him. Maybe he found Eva Braun here and a man beside her with his brains blown out, but it wasn’t Hitler. The general secretary is certain of that.’

‘The general secretary? You mean Stalin, of course.’

Minsky grinned. ‘Comrade Stalin is a man of the people. He doesn’t need titles like president or king.’

‘Have you met him?’

‘Several times.’

‘And what manner of man is he? I ask as an historian not an intelligence officer.’

‘He is Henry VIII incarnate.’

Wilde was taken aback. It was a dangerously indiscreet thing for a Soviet security officer – or anyone else for that matter – to say. Wasn’t it? Comparing Stalin to an English king? But he played along, assuming it was merely a joke. ‘With fewer wives.’