‘What are you going to do?’ he said nervously. ‘You’re not going to kill me, surely. Look, it was an accident. You can’t kill a man for that, can you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t. Not for that.’ I saw him breathe a sigh of relief and walk towards me. ‘In a civilized society you don’t shoot a man in cold blood.’

Except that this was Hitler’s Germany, and no more civilized than the very pagans venerated by Weisthor and Himmler.

‘But for the murders of all those poor bloody girls, somebody has to,’ I said.

I pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger once; and then several times more.

From the narrow winding road, Wewelsburg looked like a fairly typical Westphalian peasant village, with as many shrines to the Virgin Mary on the walls and grass verges as there were pieces of farm-machinery left lying outside the half-timbered, fairy-story houses. I knew I was in for something weird when I decided to stop at one of these and ask for directions to the SS-School. The flying griffins, runic symbols and ancient words of German that were carved or painted in gold on the black window casements and lintels put me in mind of witches and wizards, and so I was almost prepared for the hideous sight that presented itself at the front door, wreathed in an atmosphere of wood smoke and frying veal.

The girl was young, no more than twenty-five and but for the huge cancer eating away at one whole side of her face, you might have said that she was attractive. I hesitated for no more than a second, but it was enough to draw her anger.

‘Well? What are you staring at?’ she demanded, her distended mouth, widening to a grimace that showed her blackened teeth, and the edge of something darker and more corrupt. ‘And what time is this to be calling? What is it that you want?’

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I said, concentrating on the side of her face that was unmarked by the disease, ‘but I’m a little lost, and I was hoping you could direct me to the SS-School.’

‘There’s no school in Wewelsburg,’ she said, eyeing me suspiciously.

‘The SS-School,’ I repeated weakly. ‘I was told it was somewhere hereabouts.’

‘Oh that,’ she snapped, and turning in her doorway she pointed to where the road dipped down a hill. ‘There is your way. The road bends right and left for a short way before you see a narrower road with a railing rising up a slope to your left.’ Laughing scornfully, she added, ‘The school, as you call it, is up there.’ And with that she slammed the door shut in my face.

It was good to be out of the city, I told myself walking back to the Mercedes. Country people have so much more time for the ordinary pleasantries.