“We were just children….”

“It makes no difference. It hurts more the younger you are.”

“I am sorry, Andrew, but—”

“Don’t apologize! It’s all…”

As Worstead drew breath to continue, the waitress appeared.

“Are you…are you…” she began, a little disconcerted by the sight of Worstead. “Would you like to order?”

“No thank you, Fräulein,” said Lockhart. “Perhaps you could come back in a few minutes?”

She nodded, gave Worstead one more vexed look, and then turned on her heel.

“All right, Andrew,” said Lockhart. “Carry on.”

Worstead didn’t speak.

“What happened, Andrew? How did you get here? What’s the truth? You might as well tell me. Were you in the army at all?”

“I was. But I was never an officer—I didn’t make the grade. So I joined the ranks—there was nothing else for me to do. I did all right—I even made corporal, you know.”

“That’s good.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“If you say so.”

“So where were you captured?”

“In Belgium—on the way to Dunkirk. And yes, I was sent to a POW camp. That’s where things went wrong.”

“Yes?”

“I…I…got into trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“I think you can guess.”

Lockhart nodded.

“Sure. Carry on.”

“Anyway, as a result, I was beaten up, ostracized. I had nowhere to turn, until I was offered a way out by the commandant, who must have heard from one of his ferrets that I was having a tough time.”

“What did he say?”

“He said I could leave, go and work in Berlin.”

“What sort of work?”

“It sounded easy. A bit of translating for a radio station. I jumped at it, not least because I was being offered a life away from the camp. You don’t know how unbearable it was, John. It was terrifying….”

“All right. And what happened in Berlin?”

“At first, I had a good time. There were lots of parties, and very little work. It turned out that there wasn’t much translating to be done, and what the Germans really wanted me to do was to write and broadcast propaganda. At first I refused, but they pointed out that I had no choice. Would I like to go back to the stalag, they asked? Or, worse, would I like to go to a concentration camp? I had to help them, John, otherwise I’d be dead by now.”

“And how about the Corps? When did you join?”

“I went to Genshagen in June. Again, I had no choice.”

“And what’s your mission here? What are you supposed to be doing for them?”

Worstead looked up at Lockhart warily.

“Come on, Andrew! Spit it out!”

“All right. I’m…I’m their plant. I’m here to keep an eye on things, report to Strasser about how it’s going. I’m even meant to report back to Berlin about how Strasser is doing.”

“Who in Berlin? Stranders?”

Worstead’s eyes bulged. Lockhart pressed home his advantage.

“It’s him you cook the letters up with, isn’t it?”

Worstead took his beer glass and drained half of it.