‘I don’t know. I didn’t look.’

‘Get in the car.’

Zinke stood up. He was as tall as Wilde, but thinner. At Garmisch, he had cut the figure of a fighter; now he looked a gaunt, defeated creature as he stepped into the back seat of the car and stared stone-faced ahead. It would be a shame to hang him after what he had been through, but that was his likely fate. Wilde would put in a word for him, but perhaps it would not be welcomed.

Heck was at the door of the huge old house. Lilly Marais stood at his side, her eyes wide, her hands clenched in front of her. Wilde guessed that it was Herr Zinke’s arrival that had saved her life.

‘It’s a bloodbath in there,’ Heck said. ‘House of death.’

‘Just Frau Boden?’

‘The only one murdered by him. He sliced her up pretty bad. But there is another body – laid out in an open coffin ready for burial. A pretty young girl, looks like the daughter.’

‘That would be Brünnhilde – Hildy.’ What a bloody waste of lives, Wilde thought. The Nazis are done for, yet still they find a way to kill young and old and destroy families. ‘What about the younger son, the girl’s twin?’

Heck shook his head. ‘No sign of him.’

Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Wilde postponed his journey home by twenty-four hours and took his last motorbike ride up into the mountains of the Tyrol, through Grünegg to the little village of Almrosen. The day was warm with a light breeze. Paula Jaeger was sitting out at the back, peeling potatoes.

She smiled broadly at his arrival. ‘You want me to take you up into the high Alps again, Professor Wilde?’

He laughed. ‘Not this time. I just came to thank you. You showed great courage, Paula. There’s hope for Austria with people like you.’

‘I don’t know. It just made me mad, what they did to Uncle August.’

‘Have you had any trouble? Any threats?’

‘No. The people here have always treated me with respect and continue to do so. They have their suspicions about what happened, but no one says anything. And secretly, I think they are a little proud of me. All I want now is a new man so I can have babies before it is too late. But there are no men to be had.’

‘Well, you’ve got a friend in me, which probably isn’t much consolation. Perhaps one day you could visit us in England and meet my wife and boy. There are plenty of young men in my hometown.’

‘Oh, I can never leave here. Who would look after the animals?’

‘Maybe I could bring my wife and our little boy up here to meet you.’

‘You can stay in my new guest house.’

‘You’re opening a guest house?’