Müller was reluctant to leave Southwick until she knew whether he’d pulled through or not, but a glance at the medics gave her the answer. The one who’d been attempting a second bout of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation gave a small shake of his head. His colleague covered Southwick’s lifeless body with a blanket.

Chapter 49

49

‘You do understand the danger you’re putting yourselves in, don’t you?’ said Bahlow, as he raced through Dresden’s backstreets, eyeballing Müller in the rear-view mirror of the Volvo.

‘I simply want to solve this case,’ replied Müller.

‘I’ve already told you, you won’t solve it. The best you can do is get the truth out there, but you won’t be able to do that here in the Republic. Why do you think Southwick is dead?’

‘I don’t know. But I saw that fake Stasi agent – Weiß or whatever his name is – in the corridor outside Southwick’s cell.’

‘That figures,’ said Bahlow. ‘I’m going to tell you some things, and then you’re going to forget you ever heard them from me. If you ever repeat them in public, linking them to me, I will deny I said them until I’m blue in the face. Is that understood?’

Müller nodded. But that didn’t seem to be good enough for the Stasi major.

‘I need to actually hear you say it.’

Müller sighed. ‘I understand and agree with your terms. Whatever you say won’t get linked back to you.’

Bahlow changed the angle of the mirror. ‘Tilsner?’

‘Whatever she says, I agree with.’

Müller wished it was always the case, but his answer seemed to satisfy the Stasi man.

While making sure he kept one eye on the traffic, Bahlow then began a detailed explanation of what exactly Arnold Southwick’s research had involved – occasionally checking in the mirror to make sure Müller and Tilsner were listening, and understanding.

First, he revealed Southwick’s personal interest in his research: the death of his baby brother in the Hull Blitz that preceded the attack on Dresden by some three or four years. Then how – as a boy – he’d taken part in a secret study into the psychological effects wrought by the Nazi bombers. Finally, the key part of the jigsaw. How, as an eminent historian later in life, he’d been presented with the evidence that Britain’s wartime leaders had deliberately perverted the results of this study – which showed that carpet bombing didn’t undermine a population’s morale, and was therefore pointless – and turned it on its head to claim morale was destroyed. And how they then used this as justification to bomb Dresden to smithereens, unleashing a terrible, merciless firestorm on the city once known as the Florence on the Elbe.