Now she was faced with reality. Reality was the sight of Claus standing shoulder to shoulder with Jew-hating fanatics. With men like Hermann Göring and the Head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler. How long had Claus been on such close terms with the Nazi hierarchy? For how long had he been attending private functions—and the nature of the photograph showed quite clearly that this had been a private function—at which Hitler had been present?

She had no way of knowing because he had never spoken to her of such things. She actually knew nothing about the life he led when he was not with her. Looking down at the photograph, seeing him no longer as the man she loved, seeing him no longer even as her cousin but as a committed Nazi, his arm rigid in the Nazi salute, the swastika on the enamel pin in the lapel of his evening jacket clearly visible, her gorge rose. Here was a man she had not known at all.

No longer a romantic but now a realist, she knew her belief that he would give up the House of Remer for her had been infantile. The House of Remer was as much his life as, until recently, it had been his father’s life.

Her heart felt as if it would never be whole again. It was over, and all that was left now was to tell him so.

When Claus woke to find she was no longer next to him he immediately assumed she was making breakfast. Breakfast was a meal he never usually bothered with, but on this occasion he welcomed the prospect. It would give him the opportunity of doing some straight talking.

Picking up the dressing gown that had been thrown carelessly across the bottom of the bed and not, if he remembered rightly, by him, he shrugged it on and strolled into the sitting room.

She was seated on the sofa as primly as if in a dentist’s waiting room, back straight, knees together, hands clasped.

She was also fully dressed and by her feet was the travelling bag she had brought with her.

He didn’t need to ask why she was leaving so suddenly.

The photograph lay on the glass-topped table. Hitler and his cronies. Hitler and his cronies and Claus Remer.

‘It isn’t what you think,’ he said, standing perfectly still, his hands deep in his dressing-gown pockets. ‘It was a dinner at the Chancellery for a group of major industrialists. Alfried Krupp was there; August Diehn, of the potash industry was there; Georg von Schnitzler, a director of I G Farben, the giant chemical cartel was there. None of us knew Hitler was going to make an appearance. We were there at Göring’s invitation.’

Her eyes held his, tortured and bleak.

‘I came here to ask you to rid yourself of the steelworks and the factories, just as your father has rid himself of them. I thought that his action would make it easier for you to do so. I thought that if you were no longer head of the House of Remer you wouldn’t need to be a Nazi. And I believed that if you were no longer a Nazi we could be happy. I was wrong, wasn’t I?’