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The mistakes she’d been counting on to wrong-foot him continued to pile up.

He had his back to the door when she finally slipped silently through it.

He was standing near the rear of the barn, his gun visible in his holster.

That would have looked more threatening if he hadn’t been partly crouched over with his hands on his knees, if she hadn’t been able to hear the wheeze as he sucked in his breath.

From the dishevelled state of his clothes, it was clear that he’d come straight to the barn after being released rather than taking time to rest. Noemi doubted the Americans would have used Gestapo-style techniques on him, but Viktor was overweight and wasn’t in good health, and a few days in prison – and away from the bottle – would have taken its toll.

She took another silent step forward, making sure the barn door remained open behind her.

Viktor had placed the lantern on a patch of ground next to the barn’s timber frame, she was well outside its circle of light.

He hadn’t heard her come in; he hadn’t sensed her presence. His broad back was a perfect target.

Noemi eased the gun out of her pocket. The feel of it was safe and familiar.

She ran her fingers round the barrel, found the trigger, looked at the bulky shape of him that she could have hit without taking aim.

She imagined him falling. And stopped. She had never shot a man in the back before and she wasn’t about to start doing it now.

She stowed the gun away again instead and stepped forward to a point where he would be able to see her, crunching her heel into a clump of dry straw as she did so.

Let him think she’d only that moment come in; let him think he’d caught her out with his letter.

He’d grow more careless if she played the fool.

Viktor instantly whirled round at the sound, and his bent body straightened. But it was Noemi who deliberately widened her eyes and gasped as if in surprise.

‘What are you doing here? I thought from the note I was meeting Pascal.’

His hand came away from his holster, and he grinned. ‘I’m sorry to spoil your night.’

His eyes were bloodshot; he had to narrow them as he peered through the gloom at her. He was drunk, slurring his words, unsteady on his feet. Noemi doubted he’d be able to fire a bullet in a straight line, but she didn’t doubt that he’d try.

Let him talk. Let him swagger. Do what you’re good at: watch and wait.

‘I don’t understand what’s happening. I thought you were in prison.’

She shrank into her coat and made herself smaller as she spoke.

She let him hear fear in her voice. His grin disappeared in a flash of contempt Noemi was glad to see.

It was a better reminder than his smile that he was a dangerous man, that this was a balancing act, and she could lose her footing just as easily as him.

‘I bet you did. That’s where you wanted me, wasn’t it? That’s what your nasty little posters were intended to do.’

His hand strayed back to his holster. Noemi forced herself not to react. She was younger, she was sober; time and speed were on her side. She was certain she could shoot through her coat pocket faster than he could draw his gun. She let him have the floor and didn’t interrupt him.

‘That was all a very dramatic little game, but it didn’t work.

It was never going to. I’ve dealt with the Americans before, remember.

They don’t have the time to sort out petty local grievances , as they put it, especially as nobody came forward to support your allegations.

Apparently, they’re getting denunciations like this in every town they visit.

They questioned me for a couple of days, but it got them nowhere – my accent got stronger with each answer; their German was barely good enough to order coffee with.

I don’t think they were sorry to see me go.

’ He swayed a little; recovered himself and his grin.

‘So I thought I’d come back and have a little fun myself – before I get a proper welcome home tomorrow. ’

A show-off in a sad uniform.

Hauke had added that to fool and bully . The uniform was gone, but the rest remained true. Whatever else he had planned for her, Viktor wanted her to know what he’d done: she was there as his audience. Now all she had to do was play up to the part while she worked out what to do with him.

‘By fun, do you mean tormenting me?’

He shrugged as if to say, What else?

Noemi took a step back as if she was afraid and noted how he enjoyed that too.

‘I was right though, wasn’t I? You did all the things I accused you of, whether the Americans care or not.

You got rid of everyone in this town who didn’t fit with your vision of Germany.

None of us stood a chance from the start. ’

Viktor stopped swaying and stood straighter, striking the same kind of thumb-in-belt pose he used to adopt when he stood on the stage below his beloved swastika. The moment he did that, Noemi’s body responded. Hatred surged back through her on a wave of humiliation and pain-filled memories.

He can think he’s in charge all he likes, but he’s not leaving here alive. This is the last time we go through this.

She was going to shoot him. That decision had been taken the moment she’d picked up the gun, whatever she’d promised Ute. She didn’t let any trace of that appear on her face. Instead, she let Viktor carry on having his moment.

‘I did a good job of it too, didn’t I? I got rid of everyone who was unworthy, everyone who crossed me, everyone who was a stain. Although perhaps I should give you some of the credit for that. Your carelessness did me quite the favour.’

Noemi didn’t understand what he meant and she said so.

Viktor glanced across to where he’d placed the lantern and waved rather theatrically in its direction. ‘Don’t you remember what you left under there?’

She didn’t at first. All she could see was a mouldering heap of sacks. Until realisation crashed in and she was suddenly the one fighting to stay steady.

‘Oh dear God, it wasn’t Carina or Pascal who found them; it was you.’

Shock ripped through her, but – unlike Victor, who was too busy enjoying her reaction to take any notice of anything but his own pleasure – one wave of emotion, no matter how strong, wasn’t enough to switch off her senses.

She’d registered the slight shuffle behind her and the thickening in the shadows.

She knew they weren’t alone. She moved slightly, to block the doorway Viktor hadn’t bothered checking, as he answered.

‘The clothes and the papers you left kicked underneath the sacking? Of course it was me – didn’t you work out that Carina wouldn’t have had the wit to check, and as for Pascal…

Who knows or cares why he left them. He must have forgotten.

What a gift it was. You might as well have stuck up a sign in the corner saying, Ask your treacherous wife or your son where I am . ’

Noemi couldn’t risk dwelling on her mistake, although she knew she’d need to grieve over it and the consequences for Carina once her business with Viktor was done.

It was more important now that she take control of the situation she was currently in.

She assumed Pascal must have seen the light from the lantern and followed it from the house to the barn.

She willed him not to move, not to shout out.

She gestured with her hand behind her back for him to stay where he was and prayed he could see it.

She had an awful feeling he already knew where her mistake had led.

But Viktor has to say what he did so there’s no mistaking it. Pascal has to hear exactly what happened, from his father, not from me, so there’s never any doubt.

‘So what did you do next?’ She left a deliberate pause; gave a deliberate gasp. ‘Surely you didn’t denounce your own wife?’

Noemi had pitched her shock at exactly the right level. Viktor couldn’t help himself – his smile oozed with satisfaction. It was hard to watch it spread and not be sick.

‘Of course I did. She was a traitor. Admittedly, it took a little time to get the truth out of her, and a little… let’s call it persuasion. And she didn’t want to give up Pascal’s part in your escape, but she spilled that too eventually.’

Noemi could feel Pascal behind her. He hadn’t moved, he hadn’t given himself away, but the air around him quivered with horror.

And there was nothing Noemi could do to spare him from more misery: it would have been a lie not to expose the truth.

She took a deep breath. The only thing she didn’t have to pretend was how disgusted she was.

‘But why on earth would you do that? She would have been arrested, like everyone else who was called out publicly. That surely can’t have been what you wanted?’

Viktor’s amused, ‘Of course it was,’ confirmed it.

This time Noemi let a little of her outrage show. ‘But that didn’t need to happen. She wasn’t a danger to anyone. You could have kept quiet and protected her.’

Viktor’s face lost its smile and its doughy softness.

The lantern’s light glinted in his eyes and set up a fire there that burned with hatred.

Noemi had to force herself not to look away from him.

She’d been so focused on her refusal to be afraid, she’d lost sight of his malevolence.

There was no mistaking it when he answered.

‘Not a danger maybe, but a disgrace. Old, barren, timid as a mouse. “She’s no kind of a wife for a man with ambition.” Himmler himself said that to me, and he was right.

You did me a favour; you gave me the grounds to get rid of her.

’ Viktor’s hand strayed back to his gun.

‘At the moment, that’s the one reason you’re alive. ’