They seemed too nervous to approach him.

‘Come,’ he said in French, ‘I won’t bite. Come and talk to me.’ And then he pointed at the one that had made him stop. ‘You,’ he said, ‘what is your name, Mademoiselle?’

‘Me?’ She pointed at her chest, surprised to be singled out.

‘Yes, you.’

‘Lilly, sir. Lilly Marais.’

‘Well, Lilly Marais, you are too beautiful to be shy, come and talk to me.’

She looked around at her companions. They didn’t know how to react. Then, shoulders back, hair swinging, she stepped up boldly to the rear door of the staff car.

‘Do you like champagne, Lilly?’

‘I have never tried it, sir.’

He laughed. ‘My name is not “sir”, it is Standartenführer Boden, and just for today you shall call me Julius. Would you like to try champagne?’

She looked around at her friends once more. ‘I don’t know.’

‘How old are you, Lilly?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Do you like dancing?’

‘Oh yes, sir . . . Julius. Yes, we all love to dance.’

‘Good. Then my car will come here to collect you and your four friends at six thirty this evening. Wear your finest clothes.’

And now, just over two years later, here she was approaching his home village on the border of southern Bavaria and Austria, about to meet his mother for the first time – and his people.

*

Wilde ditched the motorbike in trees close to the pathway to Heck’s eyrie, then began the gruelling two and a half mile trek up the mountainside. He carried nothing but his pistol and flashlight, but the conditions were treacherous.

Once the lights of the village came into view below, he could no longer use his torch and stowed it in his jacket pocket. Now he had to walk more slowly and a great deal more carefully.

In a patch between trees, he lost his footing in the snow at the edge of the path and fell.

He tore his palms as he scrabbled to get a handhold on the loose, sharp-edged stone, then came to a juddering halt on a small rock ledge, five foot down from the path.

For a few moments he stopped in the trees, catching his breath. He listened to the night and felt certain he could hear voices from a long way below. He took out the torch, sure that the trees would prevent it being seen, and splayed its beam across the rock face he had slid down. He saw two handholds; they were all he needed.

He switched off the light again and pulled himself up the slope. The angle was about forty-five degrees. Small rocks broke away, but through sheer strength and momentum – ignoring the blood trickling from his wrist – he hauled himself back to the path.