"I asked them about you at the hotel. They said they'd never seen you before, you just turned up tonight saying you were covering for one of the staff. So you lied to them, as well as to me."

Udo spoke softly, too softly to be overheard against the combined noise of the party in the corner and the music from the radio behind the bar. But there was no mistaking the deep, angry resentment in his voice. Hilda flushed, and bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling. In his SS uniform, he looked so different to the pudgy schoolboy of her recollection; but the hurt look in his eyes was all too familiar.

"What were you doing there?" he went on. "Why did you go to so much trouble to get into the Grindelwald, when you knew the Gestapo were watching the place?"

"I don't know what you want me to tell you," replied Hilda in a shaky voice. "I was working there. If you spoke to the chef, he would have told you..."

Udo interrupted, finishing the sentence for her. "You washed dishes, for less than an hour. Then you went to deliver a room service order, and you never came back. That order was placed by a Russian woman, who has been under observation since she arrived in Hammelburg, but now she is nowhere to be found. It's obvious, you went there to meet her." He turned, as a movement from Tiger caught his eye. "Keep still. And put your hands on the table, where I can see them. Any trouble, and I'll take you both in for questioning, right now. There are plenty of officers here to help."

He was right; the man at the next table had finished his beer, folded his newspaper and left, but the three revellers in the corner remained, and another two who had come in since Udo's arrival stood chatting at the bar. If Udo decided to take the women into custody, he would have no difficulty. Tiger, with deliberate scorn, placed both hands flat on the tablecloth, silently challenging him to follow through on his threat. But he turned back towards Hilda. "Who is your friend, Hildegard?"

"She...she is..." Hilda stammered, unable to think of a reply.

"My name is Helga." Tiger answered for her. "Hilda and I used to work together."

"Is that so?" Udo looked from one girl to the other. "And who is the woman we arrested tonight, outside the hotel?" He paused, waiting for a reply, but as neither of them spoke, he went on. "Major Hochstetter believes she is an Underground operative, a Frenchwoman known as Tiger. She denied it, of course; claimed to be a Fräulein Müller, from Dortmund. He's been trying to get hold of her dossier, but the chief of the Paris bureau doesn't want to release it. So if Hochstetter has made a mistake, by the time he finds out it will be too late. They're taking her to Berlin tonight, by train. Major Hochstetter plans to see her to the station himself, and send two of his most trusted men to Berlin with her. If she is innocent, as she claims, too bad for her."

A tiny, half-choked sob escaped from Hilda, and he rounded on her at once. "Don't. Just don't. You took advantage of me to get into the Grindelwald, and you're prepared to let this Fräulein Müller suffer the consequences of whatever you were doing there. You know what? I never really thought you were the kind of person who...well, I was wrong. Why shouldn't I just arrest you now, and be done with it?"

"Why don't you?" asked Tiger.

"Because..." Udo broke off, breathing deeply. After a few moments, he went on, addressing Hilda and ignoring her companion. "Because I don't want you caught up in the net. Not if there's some reasonable explanation for what's going on."

"What if there isn't?" whispered Hilda.

Tiger cast up her eyes, as if seeking enlightenment as to how to deal with amateurs; and Udo pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Then make something up," he muttered. Tiger's gaze switched to him instantly, her eyes aglow with suspicion.

"Will you believe me, if I do?" asked Hilda, after a moment of stunned silence.

"D-don't I always?" His low, unsteady tone, embellished with the slightest of stammers, sounded a familiar note in Hilda's memory, resonating faintly with a vague, discordant sense of shame.

She ventured a glance at Tiger, then clasped her hands together, and spoke earnestly. "Udo, the woman they arrested wasn't doing anything, she was just waiting for me. And all I did was try to help a friend. I promise you, that is the truth."

"Is it all of the truth?" he asked. Then, before she could come up with a reply, he added, "Don't tell me." He was silent for some time. "Just my luck," he said at last. "Finally I manage to do something right, and it turns out to have been wrong all along." He broke off for a few seconds, at a burst of raucous laughter from the group of men in the corner. "You'd better go home, Hildegard. There's nothing you can do for your friend. She's in the system now. I'm sorry."

Tiger was watching him closely. Her eyes fell to his untouched glass of Schnaps, and her left hand moved ever so slightly, revealing for just a moment that, before placing them on the table as directed, she'd palmed the little glass vial Marya had given her. But Hilda shook her head.

"No," she said. "I can't, not until I know she's safe."

"Hildegard, she's in the cells," Udo pointed out. "Nobody gets out of there. You can't even get in there unless you're on the staff, or a prisoner. So unless you're planning to steal a uniform and try to pass yourself off as one of us...oh, you're not." His sarcasm evaporated, as he noticed her loss of composure. "You can't be serious. Please tell me you're not serious."

It wasn't quite the plan; but it was close enough to make Hilda turn scarlet with confusion. "Udo..."

"No," he interrupted. "I won't permit it. Don't you know what they will do to you, if you're caught?" He broke off, and brushed his hand across his face. "Go home. I'll get her out of there."

Both women stared at him. Tiger's fingers closed on the vial, her eyes slowly narrowing as she assessed the potential value of this unexpected offer, and the probable motives behind it; but Hilda, recalling his boyhood ineptitude, was seized with foreboding. "How?" she faltered.

Unconsciously she laid her hand on his arm. He looked down at it, and gave a soft, hopeless laugh. "I'll think of something."

"You'll get into trouble," Hilda persisted. "You always do, when you try to help. And what happens to you then?"

He sighed. "Well, at least I'll have tried. I've never been much use to the Gestapo, maybe I was meant to be doing something better."

He seemed so despondent that Hilda couldn't help trying to comfort him. "But you made Unterscharführer," she murmured.

"Only because I keep out of trouble, and my paperwork's always up to date. To get any further...well, I'd have to stop feeling sorry for people, and I just can't."

"Then why did you join?"

Once again Udo hesitated, before admitting the shameful truth: "My mother told me to. She thought it would keep me away from the front, as well as being a good long-term prospect. She said whatever else happens, there'll always be work for the secret police."

He stood up. "Leave it to me, Hildegard. I'll get your friend out even if it kills me."

"Wait," said Tiger.

He hesitated, his eyes filled with anxious doubt. "You can't talk me out of it," he said. "My mind is made up."

"Of course it is," she replied. She tilted her head slightly, like a scientist analysing a familiar compound which had suddenly started to exhibit new and surprising properties. "But would it not be much better if you could rescue our friend without getting yourself shot?"

"Uh...I suppose so," he mumbled, slowly sitting down again. "But..."

"Chut." She held up one finger, and he blushed, and folded his hands. Tiger turned to Hilda. "He is a friend of yours, no?"

"Yes," said Hilda, without hesitation. Udo gave her a startled look, which gradually grew into a slow, bewildered smile.

"Do you believe he means to help?" Tiger leaned across the table, speaking softly, but with deep, intense significance. "Are you completely sure of him? Think carefully before you answer."

But Hilda didn't have to think. All she had to do was remember. "Yes. I'm sure."

Tiger's eyes went back to Udo. She studied him in silence for what felt like a very long time. "Then by all means," she murmured at last, "let him help."