‘Pick him up, I want to see his face,’ Wilde said to the lieutenant as they climbed out of the jeep.

‘Sure thing, Mr Wilde.’ He signalled to the soldier guarding the driver. ‘You can let him up now, Corporal.’

The soldier winced. ‘Better look in the back of the van first, sir.’

*

The body of Ingrid Zinke was curled up like a foetus. She had been strangled with a belt, which was still tied around her neck. Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot, her tongue protruding between her blue lips. Her hands were bound behind her back with thin cord and her pretty dirndl skirt rode high around her thighs. The poor girl had been in no position to fight off her killer or struggle against death.

Wilde gazed at the pathetic sight for a few long moments, then returned to the prostrate driver and dragged him to his feet and slammed his fist hard into his face. The man grunted and fell backwards, blood spewing from his nose and mouth. Wilde pulled him up and hit him again, then threw him to the ground.

‘Bind him tight,’ he said to the corporal. ‘We’re taking him back to Garmisch. Get one of your men to drive the van with the body.’

The lieutenant looked concerned. ‘Isn’t this a matter for the military police, Professor Wilde?’

‘No.’

‘But a young woman has been murdered.’

‘Yes, and we have the killer in custody – and I know his motive and who ordered the killing. The dead girl is named Ingrid Zinke. She was killed to silence her. I believe her family lives in Innsbruck, so perhaps you could ask your French counterparts to seek them out and get them to come and identify her. It’s possible they might even have useful information to impart.’

‘Understood, sir.’

*

The killer’s ID papers gave his name as Andreas Stock, and his profession as postman. His address was given as Grünegg. He was a small, undernourished man of twenty-eight and Wilde had seen him before, on a rubble-strewn street in Berlin just before a sniper opened fire. Had he also been among the men and women singing the Horst Wessel song in the Kuhhaus?

Other than that, no information was to be had. Andreas Stock refused to say a word. He didn’t even confirm his name.

Wilde had been through the dead woman’s valise, which was found beside her body. The contents were what you might expect of a serving girl of limited means – a few cheap items of clothing, the stub of a lipstick, a toothbrush and hairbrush, a wooden crucifix, a few letters from her mother, Marthe, complete with her home address in Innsbruck. And that was it.

‘I have seen you before, Stock.’

No response.