Müller thought she was taking them to another office. But they carried on walking, and were soon outside the building. Still Frau Voights didn’t stop. She walked at a furious pace on what looked like a cross-country ski track, straight into the forest. From the hubbub of the laundry room, they’d been catapulted into an eerie silence. The noise of the laundry machines, the noise of the pupils and teachers at the school, all replaced by a soundlessness – which the blanket of snow seemed to soften still further.

The woman turned off the track and walked for a few metres through the trees until they came to a clearing, which had a wooden table and benches – almost as though it was used by walkers as a picnic spot. It probably was. Voights cleared the snow off the table and one of the benches, and then invited Müller and Tilsner to sit down next to her.

‘Sorry for all the secret squirrel stuff,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t want to talk about any of this within earshot of anyone from the school. And to be honest, I hoped this day would never come.’

‘Why’s that?’ asked Müller, noticing for the first time there were tears in Voights’s eyes.

‘Heinz asked me to look after some documents for him, in the laundry. He thought it was the safest place. Why would anyone look for anything like this in a laundry room?’

‘And what documents are they?’ asked Tilsner.

‘These,’ said the woman, pushing the briefcase along the table towards the two detectives. Then she seemed to have second thoughts, and pulled it back towards herself and clutched it to her chest. ‘You’re not from the Ministry of State Security, are you?’

‘No,’ said Müller. ‘As we said a few moments ago, we’re Kriminalpolizei detectives. We showed you our IDs.’

‘Yes. But I think I’m still in a state of shock.’

‘You heard what happened then?’ asked Tilsner. ‘To . . . Heinz?’

‘Not exactly.’ The woman stifled a sob, still clutching the briefcase tightly. ‘But he rang me from a public call box last night. He sounded desperate. I knew he was going to do something. Or . . .’ The woman let her unsaid thought hang in the crisp winter air of the forest.

‘Or have something done to him?’ ventured Müller.

The woman nodded, the tears starting to flow down her cheeks. ‘Th-th-that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

Müller laid her gloved hands over the woman’s. ‘I’m afraid so, Frau Voights. The body of . . .’ The woman gasped and then started shaking uncontrollably. Müller gripped her hands more tightly, trying to calm her. ‘The body of Heinz Schenk has been found. At the bottom of Dresden’s TV tower.’

‘Oh my God!’ shrieked the woman.