“A priest I know, who works for the Comradeship, told me that Warzok disappeared from a safe house near Ebensee. He was supposed to go to Lisbon and get on a boat bound for South America. The same place that Eichmann is headed. They figure you killed Warzok the same way you killed Willy Hintze.”

“Well, that’s true, at any rate,” agreed Zvi. “I was working for the CIA then. Or the OSS as we called it. And Aaron, he was British Army Intelligence. We did kill Willy Hintze. In the wood near Thalgau. A few months after Eichmann. The man we thought was Eichmann, anyway. Eichmann’s brother used to go to a small village in the Ebensee hills. His wife used to go to the same place. We went there in the dark. Kept the place under surveillance. There were four men staying in a chalet in the woods near the village. The man we killed matched the description we had of Eichmann.”

“You know what I think?” I said. “I think Eichmann’s family were drawing you off, so that he could be somewhere else.”

“Yes,” said Zvi. “That’s been done.”

I’d said my piece. I was exhausted. I asked for a cigarette. Zvi gave me one. I asked for more coffee. Aaron poured me a cup. I was getting somewhere.

“What are we going to do, boss?” Aaron asked Zvi.

Zvi sighed irritably. “Lock him up somewhere while I think,” he said.

“Where?” Aaron looked at Shlomo.

“The bathroom,” said Shlomo. “There’s no window and there’s a key in the door.”

I felt my heart leap in my chest. The bathroom was where I had hidden the gun that Engelbertina had given me. The one she claimed she wanted me to have in case Eric Gruen had used it on himself. But would it still be there?

The two Jews escorted me to the bathroom. I waited until I heard the key removed from the lock on the other side of the door before opening the airing cupboard and reaching behind the hot-water tank. For a moment, the gun eluded me. The next second it was in my hand.