Hester slipped off her jacket and laid it over the arm of a sofa. ‘It’s because I realize how much more dangerous Berlin has become that I’m here. Good couriers and go-betweens are always needed, Max, and I’m good. Not only that, I’m here this time on a personal mission. Has my father told you about the nightmare situation his dentist, Mo Schimmel, is in?’

Max shook his head. Solomon Dresner said very little now about the plight of family and friends, and Max knew his silence was not due to lack of trust, but because Solomon found the present situation too unbearable to put into words.

Hester sat down on the sofa. ‘The Schimmels have a Mongoloid son and have received notification he is to be sent to an unspecified treatment centre. It’s a decision that can’t be fought against—you know that as well as I do. The only way they are going to be able to keep their family together is to leave the country.’

There was quiet determination in her voice. Looking at her, even though her colouring was so diametrically opposed to Ilse’s, he was reminded of Ilse. She possessed the same innate gentleness, the same quiet way of speaking—and beneath her sweet-tempered exterior there was the same strong-as-steel strength.

He slammed down hard on the thought. He mustn’t start thinking of Ilse. Ilse was now engaged to Nicholas Schulenburg and the only way he could survive the pain of her abandonment was to force himself not to think of her. He said, concentrating on the matter in hand with great mental effort, ‘Do they have relatives in America?’

Hester shook her head. Her dark shoulder-length hair was held away from her face with tortoiseshell combs and it swung as she moved, catching the light. ‘No. Nothing so easy.’

There was a commotion in the street and he walked across to the window. She noticed he wasn’t dressed in either a suit, or smart flannels and a jacket. Instead, he was wearing a pair of shabby trousers and his blue open-necked shirt was stretched tight across his muscled chest, making him look more like a labourer than a banker. Not for the first time, she wondered about the nature of his work for Barings—and if he actually worked for Barings at all.

‘What’s happening in the street?’ she asked, almost certain she knew the answer.

‘An arrest.’

The muscles in his arm were bulging and his fists were clenched.

She knew why. It was out of the sheer frustration of being able to do nothing, for interference on his part would mean increased brutality being meted out to the victim and would result in him being arrested also.

‘Who is it?’ She didn’t go to the window to look. Looking was unbearable.

‘It’s an elderly man from the grocery shop, five doors down on the other side of the street.’

‘The shop with the broken and boarded-up windows?’

He nodded.

There came the sound of a truck’s engine revving and then the sound of it hurtling away over the cobbles.