‘Yes, I asked that, too, but she wouldn’t say. It wasn’t helped by the language barrier. I’ve got a bit of French but she has no English and little German.’

‘Tell me about Boden. What does he look like? What do you know of his background?’

‘Oh, on the surface, he’s remarkably charming and urbane. Pretty good English, fair haired, quite tall. The perfect Teuton warrior. He was in the SS Das Reich – the 2nd Panzer Division. Served in both east and west theatres at various stages of the war. The Das Reich was implicated in atrocities, the worst of which is the infamous Oradour-sur-Glane massacre. Boden was a senior officer, but what part he played in that slaughter and others is not yet known. It was one of our priority inquiries ahead of the trials.’

‘He clearly came to the attention of Hitler and Goebbels.’

‘Well, yes, I heard he was considered a hero. He was said to be responsible for some astonishing act of courage on the eastern front. Led charges against Soviet machine gun posts on two occasions. Of course, it would all have been played up by Goebbels for propaganda purposes, so one never knows how daring he really was. I think Boden rather fitted the bill as the all-German action man.’

Wilde listened intently. He realised that such things had happened in Britain and America, too. Countries needed heroes to boost morale, and the Allies were no exception: figures like the infantryman Audie Murphy in America, the legless pilot Douglas Bader in Britain, the female sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko in Russia. And now Julius Boden in Germany. Such warriors helped to sell the glory of war to impressionable youngsters. It was the way of the world.

‘What else, Major?’

‘Well, he had his big publicity tour of Germany, and then he returned to the front and was wounded. Took two bullets, one in the shoulder, the other in his thigh. That just made him even more the big hero, and then things really changed for him. Following his recuperation, he was used for a few more publicity tours. After that Goebbels decided Boden was too valuable alive to be risked in the front line. It was a good look to have a few heroes actually survive. So he was assigned to some senior administrative role in northern France, strengthening defences against the inevitable Allied invasion. He was there – Rouen, I think – throughout 1943 until the Normandy landings in June last year when he rejoined the Das Reich as they drove north from the South of France. He was certainly with them at the time of Oradour-sur-Glane, but whether he played a part in that massacre is still to be determined. There was one other thing . . .’

‘Go on, Major Clausen.’