Müller didn’t share his confidence. She knew what they were doing was about the riskiest thing they could do. She gave Jannika and Johannes a squeeze.

‘So you promise?’ insisted Jens.

‘I said so, didn’t I?’ replied Jäger, tetchily. ‘Now be quiet.’

‘Are we nearly there, Mutti?’ asked Johannes.

‘Not long now,’ said Müller. ‘Just a few minutes.’

*

They arrived at a clearing. Tilsner killed the headlights, plunging everything into darkness. Müller had looked at the weather forecast – it was a cloudy night, but no rain predicted, but equally no moon or starlight. Blackness enveloped them.

‘I don’t like this, Mutti. It’s frightening,’ whined Jannika.

‘Shush!’ snapped Müller, more fiercely than she meant to.

Then they heard a match struck, and saw its flare illuminating a single figure in front of them. Then the orange glow of a lit cigarette, and a face peering at the driver’s window. Tilsner wound it down.

‘You took your time, didn’t you? I was getting worried.’ The man peered into the car. ‘Jesus, how many of you are there? That’s more than we agreed.’

‘It is what it is,’ said Tilsner. ‘And it’s too late to change things now.’

‘Well, I suppose it’s your risk.’

Müller gripped the edge of the rear seat hard. She didn’t want her fears to become obvious to the children. She was going to have a hard enough job persuading them to come as it was. For Jäger, with a wilful teenager, the task would be even more difficult.

As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she saw Tilsner, Jäger, and the other man hauling apparatus from the undergrowth into the clearing. The children had no idea what it was, not yet. Once the men had sorted things as they wanted them, they signalled for Müller and the children to join them.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Jens. ‘I don’t like the look of this at all. I have to be back at the school first thing tomorrow.’

Müller wasn’t sure if it was her place to enlighten the boy – at the same time, she didn’t want him ruining everything. ‘That school is a bad place, Jens. The vitamins they get you to take, the ones that are supposed to be helping you with your health and fitness, they’re not. Did you not ever wonder why the Republic did so well at the last games, in the United States? The most medals of any nation, including the mighty Soviet Union. Did you not stop to think how that happened?’

‘Shut up!’ the boy shouted. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. What the hell is going on here anyway?’

Müller grabbed Jannika and Johannes and hauled them with her, leaving the boy in the car.

‘I’m frightened, Mutti,’ complained Jannika.

‘Me too,’ whined Johannes.