Last Man to Die by Michael Dobbs

clumsily, his left boot submerged up to the ankle in a small ornamental fish pond, then he realized he had been jumping at his own reflection. His brain was too frozen even to curse. He made the last few yards to the kitchen door on all fours, tripping over a bicycle as his legs buckled in protest. He was kneeling, catching his breath, finding comfort in the solid appearance of the door – no scratch marks, no sign of a dog. Perhaps it would work out after all. He had to claw his way upright, each movement of his frozen muscles requiring a separate and specific command, until he was leaning on the door and trying to peer within. All seemed quiet and empty. He stepped inside.
    At one end of the kitchen stood a wood-burning stove and the warmth cascaded over him as though he had thrown himself headlong into a bath. The room was large and low with a great oaken table in the middle and a rough staircase climbing the farwall, beneath which an open door led through to a tidy but undersized sitting room. The stove drew him like a magnet, he crossed the stone-flagged floor and sat on a hearth stool – not the comfortable rocking chair, too much noise – and began searching for signs of occupation. But there was no kettle on the stove, no sign of crumbs from an early breakfast on the table, no plate draining beside the sink. It took several minutes before the heavy pulse bombarding his temples began to subside and he could listen properly for any trace of noise, but he found none. At last he began to relax, prising off his boots, peeling down to his underwear, allowing the heat to replenish both body and spirit.
    He shook his head violently. The heat was beginning to play tricks with him, tempting him to close his eyes, turning from ally to enemy. He couldn’t afford to sleep, not here at least, for warm kitchens are not left empty for long. He glanced around, perhaps some food might help, and soon he had found bread, cheese, jam and apples – and butter! When had he last tasted butter? It was rock hard and tore the bread to pieces but after prison camp rations the taste was electrifying. It was as he was licking the final smears of strawberry preserve from his fingers that he heard it: a noise from the direction of the stairs, a noise which banished the last traces of drowsiness from his mind and left him coiled inside like a spring. The noise of wood creaking beneath someone’s step. As he looked up he saw a woman in her sixties, no taller than five foot two, wrapped in a white cotton dressing gown and with a face like an apple wrinkled from winter storage. The hair was steel grey and sported a patchwork of hair grips, the eyes were cold and blue and werestaring angrily at Hencke from above the well-oiled twin barrels of a shotgun.
    ‘And don’t for one moment think I won’t use it.’
    Hencke could sense she was not bluffing. The suspicion in the eyes, the stiffness of her lined and leathery cheeks and the way the thin lips were drawn down to form an ugly, uncompromising gash reminded him of his aunt, and his aunt had never uttered empty threats. The promise of a beating had always meant a beating, often two, until he had grown too big and she had been forced to lash him instead with her tongue, inflicting far more torment than the hand. It had been a cruel weapon, always questioning, prying, demanding explanations for any form of absence, refusing to accept that the boy was growing to manhood and independence, was no longer hers, that he was forming loyalties to others. His explanations had never been sufficient then and, as Hencke looked at the mess of crumbs on the table and the pile of steaming clothes lying by the stove, he knew that no explanation would be good enough now.
    ‘I …’ But he didn’t bother to continue. He just shook his head and methodically began to wipe his fingers on his vest.
    ‘Don’t move!’ The voice was shrill as his hands moved down from the table. ‘Push the knife away!’ It was only