He returned to the Mercedes. ‘We’ll have him out in five to ten minutes,’ said a captain. ‘Just hold on.’

‘Okay,’ said Erik.

He heard shooting again, and walked a little farther into the forest, curious about what the Special Group might be doing here. The snow on the ground between the trees was heavily trodden and littered with cigarette ends, apple cores, discarded newspapers and other litter, as if a factory outing had passed this way.

He entered a clearing where lorries and buses were parked. A lot of people had been brought here. Some buses were leaving, skirting the accident; another arrived as Erik passed through. Beyond the car park, he came upon a hundred or so Russians of all ages, apparently prisoners, though many had suitcases, boxes and sacks that they clutched as if guarding precious possessions. One man held a violin. A little girl with a doll caught Erik’s eye, and he felt in his guts a sensation of sick foreboding.

The prisoners were being guarded by local policemen armed with truncheons. Clearly the Special Group had collaborators for whatever they were doing. The policemen looked at him, noted the German army uniform visible beneath the unbuttoned coat, and said nothing.

As he walked by, a well-dressed Russian prisoner spoke to him in German. ‘Sir, I am the director of the tyre factory in this town. I have never believed in Communism, but only paid lip service, as all managers had to. I can help you – I know where everything is. Please take me away from here.’

Erik ignored him and walked in the direction of the shooting.

He came upon the quarry. It was a large, irregular hole in the ground, its edge fringed by tall spruce trees like guardsmen in dark-green uniforms laden with snow. At one end a long slope led into the pit. As he watched, a dozen prisoners began to walk down, two by two, marshalled by soldiers, into the shadowed valley.

Erik noticed three women and a boy of about eleven among them. Was their prison camp somewhere in that quarry? But they were no longer carrying luggage. Snow fell on their bare heads like a benison.

Erik spoke to an SS sergeant standing nearby. ‘Who are these prisoners, Sarge?’

‘Communists,’ said the man. ‘From the town. Political commissars, and so on.’

‘What, even that little boy?’

‘Jews, too,’ said the sergeant.

‘Well, what are they, Communists or Jews?’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘It’s not the same thing.’

‘Balls. Most Communists are Jews. Most Jews are Communists. Don’t you know anything?’

The tyre factory director who had spoken to Erik seemed to be neither, he thought.

The prisoners reached the rocky floor of the quarry. Until this moment they had shuffled along like sheep in a herd, not speaking or looking around, but now they became animated, pointing at something on the ground. Peering through the snowflakes, Erik saw what looked like bodies scattered among the rocks, snow dusting their garments.