David voiced the obvious question:

‘And then?’

‘We’ve got a few hours’ grace. But the Namibian authorities will have to intervene. So it will become common knowledge that we got out.’

Amy said, ‘And we’ll be stuck in Luderitz. What good is that?’

‘There is a means of escape.’

‘How?’

Angus explained, quite calmly.

‘The diamond shipment. Nathan reminded me. Every other day, Kellerman Namcorp transports rough diamonds to Amsterdam. Just like De Beers, flying gems into London.’ Another tilt on the rudder. ‘The shipments go via Windhoek.’

David protested:

‘But -’

‘I can get you on. They know me. And passport control is essentially run by the company itself. You’ll be landed at Kellerman HQ in Amsterdam. Back in Europe. Home safe and sound.’

‘And you?’

‘Dunno. Might take brunch…Whatever.’

‘You’re just gonna give up?’

The red-haired scientist gazed down the sunlit coast. The smoke storms were a long way away now.

‘What do you expect me to do? Go back and start over? I’m done. I’m finished. It was my stupid ego that got me this steeped in blood. I thought I could repeat Fischer, get his data, then get the Nobel, God knows. With Nathan’s help. But were they ever really gonna give me prizes for revealing something so apocalyptic? For guaranteeing war? I was an idiot. Race is the curse, the curse of God on man. And Kellerman had his own motives. Leviticus 25. I was so bloody stupid.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Work it out. My ego got Alphonse killed, Eloise killed. Nathan is dead. You guys nearly killed. Fazackerly is dead. It’s so fucking over. I’m moving on. Turning a new leaf. Drawing a line. Might take up golf.’

‘But I’m not done.’ It was Amy talking. The two men looked at her; blonde hair floating on the hot salty breeze.

‘Remember what José said?’ She looked first at Angus, then at David. ‘When he said I know what happened to the Jews – that’s the whole key to this isn’t it, Angus? Whatever this…secret is…that you were working towards. It explains why the Jews died in the Holocaust, doesn’t it? Eloise told us that. You told her something.’

Angus piloted the boat without a word.

But Amy’s face was set in that determined expression. She insisted:

‘That’s the big mystery, isn’t it? Why the Holocaust? That’s what this is all headed towards, isn’t it?’

Angus was still silent, but Amy was fired up: ‘Tell me this is it, Angus. Tell me. Hitler could have used the Jews as slave labour – and he had plans to put them in some homeland, in Russia or Africa, right? But then suddenly he changed his mind.’ She gazed at Angus. ‘Suddenly he decided he had to kill them. All of them. Even if it crippled – overextended and destroyed – the German war effort. Why did he do that?’

Angus was quiet, then he sighed.

‘Yes. Sort of. It does explain the Holocaust. Maybe. Who knows. I only mentioned it to Eloise…’ His expression darkened. ‘Because I felt sorry for her. The last Cagot in the world. She was in pain. She deserved a little explanation for what was happening.’

‘So what is it? What did Fischer find?’

‘Can’t fucking tell you. Because I have no proof. I never make a statement without proof. I am a scientist.’ He gazed their way, angrily. ‘Why not cut me some. Eh? My boyfriend is dead and Eloise’s blood is also on my damn hands. Enough. Enough.’

‘You won’t tell us.’

‘No. Because I don’t know for sure. I never did the fucking Fischer experiments. But…but if Kellerman was right, there is a man who can maybe help. That’s what Nathan was saying.’

The switchback moods of the Scotsman were bewildering. He was now staring ahead. David followed his gaze along the austere coast. He could see buildings, the spire of a church, brightly painted houses. Another surreal German town perched on the desert coast, overlooking the brutal sea.

David returned to the conversation.

‘What man?’

Angus slowed the boat as they began their approach to the port. And said:

‘Nazi. Cancerous old Nazi named Dresler, who worked with Fischer at Gurs. Knew Grandpa Kellerman. And as you heard – just here on the boat – Dresler knows.’

Amy said:

‘Please explain. Knows what?’

‘Herr Doktor Dresler fled here from Europe, in the 1990s. He was uncovered somehow. Don’t know how. So he came here. Good place to hide, Luderitz, million miles from the next kartoffelsalat. And he already knew the Kellermans.’

‘And?’

‘Remember. Rewind. Go back.’

‘Sorry?’

‘In 1946 Eugen Fischer got in touch with his old friends, the Kellermans, and told them what he had found at Gurs. And naturlich the Kellermans were…very excited by the news of what the Germans had discovered.’ The boat was slowing. ‘But the Kellermans had no proof – they didn’t have the actual data. So they have been waiting for genetic science to catch up with the Germans – for six decades.’ Angus smiled, laconically. ‘They take a long view, these dynastic Jews. They’ve been waiting since the Babylonian Captivity, you might say. Anyway the Kellermans had hopes of the Diversity Project at Stanford but that folded.’ He blinked as water splashed the boat. ‘Then GenoMap kicked off – and so they basically took us over, and used us. To repeat the Fischer experiments. Then Dresler was coaxed south, he came to live here in the 1990s and he was able to help, with lots of info. People to bloodtest and so forth. Routes to explore. And eventually…the Cagots.’

He looked at David.

Amy asked: ‘But…how can Dresler help us now?’

‘Because. If what Nathan said is right, then Dresler also knows what the doctors did after the war. He knows the lot.’

‘After the war? What does that mean?’

A shrug.

‘Angus!’

The Scotsman slowed the dinghy further. Sea birds wheeled behind. He gazed at Amy, then at David: ‘The Nazis discovered DNA – during the war.’

David was so stunned he felt the boat wobble beneath him. He gasped: ‘DNA?’

‘Yup. They’d been onto it a while. Fischer, and so forth: he got the first intimations in Namibia, studying the Khoisan and the Basters. Then he clinched the proof at Gurs. But that’s not key to what I’m saying. It’s what the Nazis did with this technology. Because of what they then found, within and between human genetic variation – that’s the key. It was a discovery so…’ Angus shrugged. ‘I mean allegedly – I don’t have proof, and probably never will now – but it was a discovery allegedly so devastating that it led to the Holocaust. And it was so powerful it gave the Nazi doctors leverage – after the war.’

‘I still don’t get the whole picture…’

Angus tutted, impatiently, but explained. ‘At the end of the war, the Nazi doctors from Gurs had one bargaining chip, which they could swap for their lives and freedom. And that bargaining chip was the Fischer results. The rumour is they hid the data somewhere…inaccessible. In Europe is my guess. Probably in central Europe, as the Allies pressed in on the shrinking Nazi empire.’ He eyed the shallowing waters, then went on: ‘The Allies couldn’t imprison them, or try them, let alone execute them. In case one of the other doctors revealed the results.’

Amy interrupted: ‘So the doctors were freed. Exonerated. Fischer became…professor at Freiburg, in 1945, despite everything he’d done.’

‘Yes.’

‘So this doctor in Luderitz? How does he fit in?’

‘Well, if what poor Nathan said is right, Dresler knows where the results are hidden.’

David felt the surge of excitement. Angus raised a hand.

‘Sure, it is compelling…But remember the Nazis must have hidden the data somewhere wildly inaccessible. Plenty of people have tried to find it. Who knows though.’ Angus paused. ‘Maybe we will?’

David was curious.

‘We? You’re coming along?’

He ran his fingers through his red hair. Eyes bright. ‘K, I confess, you got me, it’s a fair cop. I’m piqued. I’m intrigued. You shoot, you score. Maybe Dresler does know. And if so…I want to know too. I spent five years on this, I want to know if my hunch was right, about the Jews, Hitler, the Holocaust, the Basters.’