The very thought of Claus Remer raised gooseflesh on her arms. If he were to hear even a whisper of her and Hugo’s activities, or of Vicky’s involvement, and speak of them to one of his fellow Nazis, they, and everyone in the forgery ring linked to them, would be doomed. When Jews could be beaten to death for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time, there could be only one fate for anyone accused of being an enemy of the state. They would disappear into the maws of a concentration camp and never be seen again. That a man on speaking terms with Hermann Göring was a member of the family she had married into seemed unbelievable at times, but it was a cold, stark fact. And Max had just told her that if she were ever in danger and needed to contact him urgently, one of the two people to contact was Claus’s mother.

It was a suggestion that made her head spin. Hoping fervently that she would never have to put Zelda Remer to the test, she turned her thoughts to her own mother. Wherever she was at the moment, she would be home soon and Hester didn’t want to make contact with the Schimmels, or with anyone else, until she had seen her. She turned away from the window. Until her mother’s arrival, she would keep her father company in the kitchen, and while she was in there she would make an apple cake.

‘Hester! How wonderful to see you!’ Ilse rose from the small table she had been seated at and hugged Hester close. ‘But why isn’t Hugo with you? Why are you back here alone?’

‘I needed to see my mother and Hugo doesn’t get leave for ages yet.’ The café they had arranged to meet in was small and, at that time of the afternoon, uncrowded. ‘And Vicky is over here as well, at the moment, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’ Ilse sat down again. ‘She’s staying with my parents in Charlottenburg. Berthold and Claus are both so pro-Hitler it makes staying at Unter den Linden difficult for her—and it’s a house she’s never liked.’

Hester sat down opposite her. ‘Does it make it difficult for you as well?’ she asked, taking advantage of the opportunity to ask a question she had often wanted to ask.

‘No. Berthold is too mild-mannered to ever be objectionable about his loyalties and Claus…’ She paused, looking deeply unhappy. ‘Since he and Nancy said goodbye, he spends a great deal of his time at the steelworks.’

Hester was tempted to say, ‘Except when he’s in Berlin, having meetings with Hermann Göring,’ but didn’t do so. It would only make Ilse even unhappier where her brother was concerned.

Instead she said, ‘You’re looking wonderful, Ilse. More like a film star than a theatre actress.’

Ilse laughingly pooh-poohed the idea, but it was true. With her barley-gold hair in a braided coronet and wearing an exquisitely cut white silk suit with a brown shirt tied at the neck in a cravat, she looked not only beautiful, but also stunningly elegant.