She decided to approach the rendezvous point from the high sandstone plateau above the Elbe Valley, instead of climbing up from the spa town of Rathen – the usual route. It felt more like a dull November day than the start of spring, an incessant drizzle falling through the mist, with visibility reduced to a hundred metres or so. She knew the magnificent vista of the Elbe was there somewhere, snaking past Rathen itself and the other spa towns on its banks, but for now it was hidden by the greyness. The only shapes in that grey screen were those of trees, looming like featureless giants – as though they had come to watch what transpired.

Hauptmann Karin Müller hunched down into her People’s Police overcoat, trying to protect herself as well as she could. The only sounds were her own footsteps on the track and the doleful drips of water from the tree canopy. She felt a frisson of fear, but then she always did when she was meeting agents of this particular Ministry of the Republic.

The Ministry for State Security.

The Stasi.

One of the most feared secret services in the world. And probably one of the most effective.

As a captain with the People’s Police crime division, she and the Stasi men should be on the same side, fighting to defend the socialist Republic of Workers and Peasants. The smaller half of Germany. The half where making more money than your neighbour wasn’t the be all and end all of life. But too often she found that the organisation’s covert, underhand methods went right against the grain of regular police work. If the Stasi wasn’t her actual opponent, why did it so often seem to be? Was it something in her own character, her own way of doing things? Had she become a rebel almost involuntarily, even though she worked for an organ of the state? If so, her position was even more precarious than she’d realised.

All of a sudden, emerging from the gloom, were shapes other than trees. What looked like a restaurant, a union holiday home perhaps, the trappings of the Republic’s tourist infrastructure. They still appeared to be closed for winter. The only sounds remained constant: the drum beat of her own police boots, and the accompanying percussion of water drips – this time from the concrete buildings.

She checked her map, open at its page inside a cellophane wrapper to keep out the damp. According to this, just a few metres to go. Yet still she could see little through the mist.