Heck laughed. ‘Well, I’ve got an appetite. I think I’ll go and find some lunch.’

‘Wait, Heck,’ Appache said. ‘This is Professor Wilde.’

‘Yes, we’ve just met.’ He shoved the pistol back in its pack then offered his hand.

Wilde took it. What else, he wondered, was he supposed to do? Apart from the remarkable eyebrow and the lack of concern over having shot a man, the other thing he noticed was the clipped accent.

One of the camp residents came up to see what was going on. He looked vaguely interested as the stretcher bearers went about their business, then grunted and wandered away. At last Wilde began to understand; such sights had become commonplace to these people.

Death and pain had become normal everyday occurrences.

‘Did you really need to shoot him, Lieutenant Heck?’ Wilde said.

The Dutchman’s smile broadened. ‘No. I could have strangled him or cut his throat. Do you have a preference? He was lucky you came along because I would have finished the bastard.’

‘He wasn’t even armed!’

The centre of Heck’s eyebrow creased up in feigned bewilderment and he met Wilde’s gaze. ‘Do you think he worried about things like that when he shot defenceless women and children? Where have you been for the past six years, Professor?’

Wilde wasn’t about to give details of his war service to this man.

‘You know,’ Heck continued, ‘if the Nazis don’t like getting shot they shouldn’t go around Europe shooting other people. They’re hardly in a position to complain now.’

Wilde couldn’t let Heck’s comment pass unremarked. ‘But we have to show we’re better than them, Lieutenant. We must demonstrate that the rule of law is there to be upheld. That’s what the war was about. We have to learn to forgive, if not forget.’

Heck pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shoved one in his mouth. Casually smoking, he ambled alongside Wilde and Appache as they walked across the centre of the camp. ‘When your family has been murdered by Nazis, then you can come and tell me what I can and can’t do to them.’ He took a deep drag and blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘Does that sound fair?’

‘This hatred and murder has to end.’

‘God damn it,’Appache said, ‘stop the rabbiting won’t you. This sounds like a college debating chamber.’

Heck laughed. ‘The hatred and murder will end when the murderers are all dead. I want these fucking Nazis to suffer so badly that no one is ever tempted to try such atrocities against my people ever again.’

Wilde had nothing left to say.

‘Now I’m going to see my little friend Jerzy, to thank him and tell him that his nightmare is over. I’ll see you later – when you have disposed of that piece of filth.’

Heck strolled away, bag over his shoulder, hands in pockets.

*

The camp was alive with flies. Wilde tried to swat them, but it made no difference. It was a short walk to the medical centre, a large building that would have been the camp’s administration block when the place was still run by the Nazis as a concentration camp. Now, a Red Cross sign outside signified the change of function.