‘That’s not important. What matters is that I am beginning to fear for my safety. I feel the eyes of Beria and Abakumov on me. I can’t keep them both happy – so if one doesn’t do for me, the other will. I am caught in a vice between them. And so I want to get out. I have to get out, otherwise I know how this will end. You could help me.’

Wilde was astonished. ‘Are you serious, Comrade Minsky?’

‘Never more so. Specifically, I want to get to Cambridge, a place I loved. And I will need work, a roof over my head, money.’

‘But you are a senior officer, Colonel General. A hero of the war. You have immense power of your own.’

‘And did that save Kamenev and Zinoviev? And did it save Yezhov, the man who falsified the evidence against them? What of Yagoda, did his murders save him? And the most powerful of them all, Trotsky – did his power blunt the ice pick? When the worm turns in Moscow, there is no escape. And the bigger you are, the bigger the target you make. I have been expecting this for years. Now I know that my time is almost up. Perhaps I could survive Abakumov or Beria . . . but both of them? Two vials dripping poison into the general secretary’s ear.’

‘You’re asking a lot.’

‘And I give you plenty back. First your interview with Fritzsche. And then, when I am safely in England, I give your intelligence services all the secrets of the Soviet Union. One day soon you are going to need them.’

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

‘Why me?’ Wilde asked.

‘At Cambridge, I had a supervisor very much like you. A professor and a man of honour. There are no such men in my world. In my world, sons denounce fathers, friends denounce friends, wives denounce husbands, colleagues shoot colleagues in the head in cold cellars. But I know that men of honour exist in your world. And so I place my future in your hands.’

‘You realise, of course, that I alone couldn’t provide you with what you want? It is beyond my power, so I would have to seek assistance.’

‘Of course. But you must be very careful, and very discreet. Do not mention my name until you are sure it is safe.’

‘What about your family? Do you have a wife and children?’

‘You let me worry about those things, Professor. I know what I have to do. Come on, time to go. I will fix your interview with Fritzsche and then we meet again.’ He tossed something to Wilde, who instinctively put out his hand and caught it. ‘There you go my friend, for your courage.’

Wilde looked at it and laughed. It was an Iron Cross, in its box.

‘I found hundreds of them in Gestapo headquarters,’ Minsky said. ‘You have a son?’

‘I do.’ Wilde rather suspected that Minsky already knew that.