So I’m more than a little annoyed that Major Bahlow has seen fit to choose this moment to catch up with me. Then again, I guess I should be thankful to him. He was the one who arranged the treatment – and despite all the nastiness in Gorbitz he’s kept his side of the bargain.

Of course, I was desperate when I heard about Arnold. The poor man! For a while, I felt horribly guilty, too. It was me that helped ruin his research. And it must have been the failure of that research, its undermining thanks to the false Soviet documents, which finally drove him to take his own life. I’d tried to find out what exactly happened from Major Bahlow – but he just parroted the official version. It’s odd, really. Arnold never struck me as the suicidal type.

Once I’m in the car, the major sets off as though he’s driving out towards Bad Schandau or Königstein – I hope he’s not taking me back to the uranium mine. That’s a part of my life I’m happy to have left behind.

‘You realise I’m standing up a date by being here with you, Major,’ I say. ‘I hope it’s going to be worth it.’

‘I think it will be, Lotti,’ he says, mysteriously.

Instead of going all the way to either Königstein or Bad Schandau, he stops the car at the nearest layby, and then turns to me.

‘I’m going to tell you some things that you must never repeat, and that you never heard from me, Lotti. If you do ever repeat them, I’ll deny it, and claim you are a fantasist. There’s also the small matter of the man that was killed in Gorbitz. Now the authorities here in the Republic have probably chalked that one down to the late Dr Southwick –’ as he says the name, I can’t help but let out a small gasp. Poor Arnold – ‘but,’ he continues, ‘we both know what really happened that night.’

There’s a moment’s silence as he allows the implications to sink in.

‘Who was he?’ I ask, timidly. ‘I hope he didn’t have family.’

‘It’s too late for regrets, Lotti. And no, if it’s any consolation, he didn’t. He was a fairly low-grade agent with the Ministry for State Security, posing as a Russian. He seemed to fool Dr Southwick, so in that respect he did his job well. His mistake was agreeing to that fateful second meeting. But I haven’t brought you here to talk about that. It’s history. The official version will be that he died of a heart attack or something similar, so there’s no need to fret.’

‘So why are we here? I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?’