‘You are such a good listener and I am nothing but a silly blabbermouth, but I have no one else to talk to.’ She squeezed his hand in gratitude and tried a brave laugh, to pretend she wasn’t hurting, but couldn’t sustain it. ‘Tell me. Is facing death … difficult?’

In the semi-light she was looking at him with the earnestness of a young woman, spoiled all her adult life and who had never grown up, never had to, but who had the honesty to realize it. Now she was having to catch up for those wasted years, to mature, to deal with pain, to face death, all in a hurry. Even in this place he couldn’t help but have sympathy.

‘Facing death difficult? I’ve found facing life much harder. Death is just another challenge, and not the most difficult. There is no pain in death, the pain is all in the waiting. You can spend every day of a whole lifetime fearing something which will come only once and, when it does, be gone in a moment. Why waste our lives fearing something over which we have no choice? You have only one really important choice, and that’s nothing to do with dying, it’s all about living. How long we have is of little consequence, what we do with it is everything. That’s what makes facing death difficult, the regrets. The things you’ve done or, even worse, the important things you’ve left undone.’

‘Will you die with regrets?’

He paused. ‘I hope not.’

The darkness had closed around them like a confessional. She had stopped crying, they were still holding hands.

‘Have you ever helped anyone to die?’

He ran his tongue across his lips to moisten a mouth which had suddenly run dry as he considered how best to answer, or if he should answer at all. He began hesitantly. ‘Once, many years ago, a friend asked me to help him die. He felt alone, victimized. His colleagues and family had rejected him. He was in despair. He felt he had nothing left to cling on to.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I gave him something to live for.’ Hencke’s voice was no more than a whisper, as if every word had to be carved from his soul.

‘And is he …?’

‘No, he’s dead now. The war … But I think he died without regrets.’

‘Then he was a very fortunate man to have such a friend as you, Peter.’

‘Maybe.’

They sat in the gazebo for some while, in silence, joined in spirit and by the touch of their hands. Eventually they were brought back from their private thoughts by the sound of heavy boots making their way up the Bunker stairs towards the emergency exit.

‘We have to go. My friends are waiting for me – for you, really; they’ll be disappointed! – and I mustn’t keep them waiting. I’m going to take a short cut through the gardens but you must go back through the checkpoints in the Bunker and sign out. But Peter …’ There was pleading in her voice. ‘Promise you’ll help me, too.’

‘Help you? How?’

‘Help me to live, to die if needs be, with no regrets. Tomorrow. This time. Meet me. Help me.’

‘Where?’

‘The reception area in the Chancellery. It’s always crowded. Don’t come up and talk to me. Just follow me. Please?’

He had no chance to consider or reply before she pushed him in the direction of the Bunker entrance, while she ran off, disappearing into the night, leaving him bewildered. What did she want? How could he agree to help her? He felt the uniform grabbing at his throat once more and beads of perspiration gathered on his brow. Christ, Hencke, remember what you’re here for!

As the sound of boots on concrete steps drew closer, he discovered he was still holding the case containing the photograph. He turned it round on all sides, rubbing his thumb over the soft leather, knowing what honour the gift implied, remembering the inscription. ‘A brave and devoted follower … From your Fuehrer …’ He weighed it carefully in his hand, testing its weight before casting around to make sure no one was watching. Then he threw it down the jaws of the broken cement mixer.

TWELVE

‘Hencke, Peter. Born when he said he was – Second of February, 1910. Born where he said he was, just outside Eger in the Sudetenland. Only son, father a local shopkeeper, killed at the battlefront during the 1916 offensive at Verdun. Left Eger to study at university in Karlsbad, never returned. No surviving relatives left in the area.’ Bormann’s bullet-shaped head looked up from the slim folder that held the notes of his conversation with the flustered Buergermeister of Eger. ‘He checks out, your Hencke. He’s all right.’

Goebbels sat, staring into the fireplace, the corners of his mouth dragged down almost to the bottom of his jaw as he concentrated, giving him an air of unremitting gloom. It was a while before he responded.

‘What else?’

‘Else? Nothing else. I said, he left Eger. We’re now checking with the people in Karlsbad and Prague. But what’s your problem? The creep checks out.’

‘You’re talking about nearly twenty damned years ago! Nothing since then. You call that “checking out”?’ The tone was accusatory, the look that Goebbels threw at Bormann far worse.

‘For God’s sake, what’s bothering you? Haven’t we got bigger things to worry about? Three hundred thousand men just surrendered in the Ruhr, Russian tanks already driving along the autobahn around Berlin, the Fuehrer a stumbling wreck, the last opportunity we’ve got of getting out of this hole rapidly going up in smoke … and you keep fussing about one lousy man. A man you brought here in the first place. What the hell do you think you’re doing!’

Bormann’s fingers were trembling, a flush creeping up his thick-set neck and across his bony features. He was angry, exasperated, frustrated, but Goebbels could see it was more than that. The man was scared. A shaking leaf. It was as simple as that.

‘Don’t you see? It’s precisely because we want to get out of this hole that Hencke is so important. If we just scuttle off to the Alps the whole of Germany will think we’re running to save our wretched skins. White flags will sprout like weeds all the way across the Reich and the war will be over within days. Dammit, as soon as we start heading for the aircraft they’ll be ripped apart by those being left behind. We’ll look like deserters. But with Hencke, with the example of a man who’s risked everything to fight at the Fuehrer’s side, we might still make it appear like an inspired move to a new fortress, a brilliant plan to outwit the Russians. An example which might keep resistance burning throughout Germany.’

‘You don’t sound too bloody sure …’

‘Of course I’m not sure, you idiot! What do you think I am, a witch doctor? But I know one thing for damn certain. If we stay here we’re all going to have our balls dangling on the end of Russian bayonets before the end of the week. So make your choice. Hencke? Or singing castrati for the Communists!’

Bormann made no reply. His head sagged and he looked mournfully towards the floor, while Goebbels took several panting breaths to regain his composure.

‘So, my dear Bormann, check out in Karlsbad, check out in Prague, get them sifting through the records of the Wehrmacht, enquire anywhere you might find something about Hencke. Check, check, check. We need this bastard firmly under our thumb, because next to the Fuehrer, he may be the most important man in the Third Reich …’

The reception area of the Chancellery was crowded still, but something had changed since the previous day. There were fewer armed guards standing around than Hencke remembered from his last visit, the piles of packed suitcases seemed to have grown higher, more people were off in corners whispering anxiously between themselves. They appeared to be discussing more than where to spend their evening. The vast foyer retained the bustle and atmosphere of a railway station, but one in which the last train was about to leave with not enough room for all the passengers. A new form of greeting had become common around the Chancellery – ‘How’s your family? Where are they?’ Anybody with sense was trying to get their families moved west, away from the advancing Russians, and those with influence were trying to join them. A major with responsibility for issuing transportation permits had been busy the previous day dealing with a long line of applicants, shouting down the phone to discover when the next train, road convoy or airplane was leaving; today the queue had gone and he sat listlessly by a silent telephone, head in hands. Nobody was bothering with permits any more, the transportation system was shot to hell and it was every man for himself.