Wilde started again. ‘We want to hear your story all the way through, Herr Kempka. If you are persuasive, I may let you have a single sandwich. If you help us, I may even have more sandwiches brought – perhaps some bratwurst – and a litre of beer. How does that sound?’

‘And cigarettes?’

‘That depends on you. Go ahead.’

He was a slender, dark-haired man with a fresh face. Somehow he had managed to keep himself groomed. He was clean-shaven and his hair had been trimmed neatly. Wilde guessed that was a major part of the job: look good, drive safely, keep a high shine on the boss’s car. Habits died hard.

‘What is there to say? I am thirty-four, nearly thirty-five. I originally come from Oberhausen in the Ruhr. I was a motor mechanic, but I joined the Party in 1930 and in 1932 I was selected for the Führer’s SS bodyguard detail in Munich, as stand-in driver when Schreck was indisposed. In 1936, after poor Schreck died, I was promoted to number one driver, and that was the role I carried out until the very end. Nor was I just his driver. I was also in charge of the Führer’s private fleet of forty vehicles.’

‘And you were always loyal to Hitler?’

‘Always, and I still am. When I met Hitler I immediately came to admire him, and we developed a bond which lasted until the very end. I will never say a word against him. Shall I go on? Would you like to know about the many times I drove him on important missions?’

‘No,’ Wilde said. ‘Cut to the bunker, April thirtieth this year.’

‘Perhaps just one cigarette?’

Wilde didn’t have any because he didn’t smoke. He glanced towards his companion with a raised eyebrow. Heck took the hint and pulled a cigarette from the packet in his shirt pocket. He lit it, then dropped it on the floor so that Kempka had to go down on his knees and forage for it.

‘Now then,’ Wilde said after the SS officer had taken two long drags of the smoke. ‘The bunker.’

‘Thank you, thank you for the cigarette.’ He bowed his head ingratiatingly towards Heck. Suddenly the bluster had dissipated; the SS superman had feet of clay and was prepared to grovel for scraps like a common beggar. ‘Very well, it was one thirty in the afternoon. I was at the car pool, in the underground garages, when I received a call from Otto Günsche . . .’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Hitler’s adjutant.’

‘And where is he now?’ Wilde was taking notes.

‘I don’t know, Professor Wilde. Maybe dead, maybe taken by the Soviets. If I knew, I would tell you.’

‘OK, carry on.’