His next surprise was Ilse’s reaction to him. Instead of merely greeting him with careless cousinly affection, she ran towards him as if she were a small girl about to be swung up into his arms.

He wasn’t to know it, but Max was almost as taken aback as he was.

Ilse was the baby of the family and that was how he had always treated her. His best chum was Lotti, but it was Ilse he had always taken out on treats such as circus and theatre and cinema visits. Though there were only six years between them, they were an important six years. When he had become a young adult, she had still been a child playing with dolls. When he had been recruited into the British Intelligence Service, she had been a schoolgirl. Three months ago, when he had last been in Berlin, she had clearly been a schoolgirl no longer, but neither had she been the ravishingly poised and beautiful creature that now, incredibly, was about to throw herself into his arms and hug him.

A cloud of expensive perfume assailed him. His arms closed around her. The satin of her dress was slippery beneath his touch. It was the dress of a worldly young woman, a sophisticated young woman, a young woman with an exceptionally beautiful body and a young woman who wasn’t shy of showing it off.

‘How wonderful that you’re back in Berlin!’ she said happily as he kissed her on the cheek. ‘Do come and meet Vladimir. He’s a good friend of Hugo’s and he knows Nancy as well.’

Slipping her hand into his she walked with him across the vast art deco-furnished room to where Vladimir was waiting for them, an odd expression in his eyes.

The expression was circumspectly extinguished before Ilse began making introductions, but not before Max had seen it and known exactly the kind of prurient speculation going through the other man’s head.

‘Max, let me introduce you to Prince Vladimir Ovelensky. Vladimir, my cousin, Max Remer.’

This time it was Max’s turn to have to try and hide stunned surprise. He had assumed Ilse’s escort for the evening to be Nicholas Schulenburg, the admirer both his mother and her mother had spoken of.

As he joined Ovelensky in a glass of whisky and soda and trivial politenesses were trotted out, Max tried to work out what the devil was going on. Had his sweet guileless cousin become a floozy or was she unaware that the new men in her life were intent on becoming something other than mere friends?

Once at Ciro’s it became clear that Ovelensky and Schulenburg were not the only moths being drawn to Ilse’s flame. Axel Hewel, a Swiss attache Max knew slightly, came across to their table to say hello to him. His eyes, however, never left Ilse for a moment—nor did the eyes of many other men. And then Nicholas Schulenburg entered the nightclub with a party of friends and, at Ilse’s request, the entire group progressed no farther than their table.