They walked a few hundred yards, slowly. He slipped his hand into her pocket without her noticing, found her ration card, saw her name and replaced the card. As they walked, they made a curious couple. Some people looked at them with sullen faces filled with self-pity, others averted their eyes, minding their own business. Women, some with shovels, some with buckets, formed chains, clearing bricks and rubble away to prepare routes for trams and cars. Heck watched them with vague curiosity. They were called trümmerfrauen – debris women. They were paid a meagre seventy-two pfennigs an hour, but they had no option but to work – for if they refused, they didn’t get ration cards. The idea that they would ever clear this devastation was laughable. Berlin was dead for ever.

A British checkpoint was waving military vehicles through at a crossroads. Heck approached them and flashed his ID.

‘This woman needs help,’ he said in English.

‘Looks fit enough to me, chummy,’ the grizzled sergeant replied.

‘You call me sir, sergeant, and if I say the woman needs help, then you say, Yes, sir. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the sergeant said reluctantly, clearly unsure why he should be answerable to a man in civilian clothes with a foreign accent, especially one so young.

‘There is a dead baby in her pram. She thinks it requires treatment. But it is the woman herself who requires treatment. Where can we find medical assistance for her?’

‘That’ll be at base, sir.’

‘What’s your name, Sergeant?’

‘Wainwright, sir.’

‘Coldstream Guards, yes? Well, Sergeant Wainwright, you will depute one of your men to take this woman to base and make sure she is seen by a doctor. Your man will explain the circumstances and see that the woman is looked after. I am holding you personally responsible. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, sir. Where precisely would you like her to be taken? Mackenzie King barracks? Brigade HQ in Fehrbelliner Platz? Someone there will know what to do. Or the British Military Hospital, Spandau?’

‘Go direct to the BMH by jeep. Tell them her name is believed to be Maria Dienstag. Mary Tuesday in English. Look after her and call me to let me know the outcome. Do you have a notebook?’

The sergeant handed over his small notepad and pencil.

Heck wrote his name and the telephone details at OSS. ‘Good day, Sergeant. And remember, she may be German, but she has suffered enough.’

*

Minsky dropped Wilde back at OSS headquarters in Foehrenweg. They had agreed that the Russian’s driver would pick him up at nine o’clock the next morning. Minsky said he wished Wilde to come alone.

The question now was, where was Lieutenant Heck? There had been no sign of him all day. It was worrying, but for the moment it could wait. First, he had a telephone call to make. He sought out Helms. ‘Do we have a secure line here, Richard?’