‘Nicholas told me I’d find you on this floor. There’s been a little segregation with the guest bedrooms. Most of Ilse’s friends are on the first floor as are all female members of the family. Nicholas’s friends and all other males are up here. It’s a vast house, isn’t it? Almost as big as the Charlottenburg Palace.’

‘And only a tad bigger than the family mausoleum on Unter den Linden, and probably a tad smaller than Schloss Niedernhall.’ They strolled companionably towards the main staircase, people they didn’t know continually entering and exiting the rooms on either side of them as they did so. ‘What’s happening with the Schloss?’ he asked. ‘Is it still being used as a country retreat by Himmler or Göring or some other highflying member of the government?’

Lotti wrinkled her nose. ‘I believe it gets used mainly for high-ranking Nazi conferences and I haven’t a clue who is in permanent residence. They’re welcome to it, though. It’s a hideous pseudo-medieval monstrosity. The only people who ever rated it were my parents. Vati handing it over for government use was surprising, to say the least.’

They began walking down the wide marble staircase and he hid the surprise he felt at her still referring to his stepfather as Vati. The diminutive of the word ‘father’ was not one he easily associated with Josef Remer’s off-puttingly austere personality.

‘I rather think Claus will offload the Unter den Linden mansion as well, when he gets the chance,’ Lotti continued chattily, squeezing to one side to allow a giggling group of children to clatter past them. ‘Now Ilse will no longer be living there, he and Berthold will be rattling around in it like two lonely peas in a drum. If he keeps it on it will only be because the house symbolizes a great deal to our parents.’

‘Well, it has been the Remer family home for three or four generations now, hasn’t it? It’s hard to give up on something like that. Your father will want to see Claus handing it on to his son—when he has one.’

‘If he has one,’ Lotti said drily as they finally reached the grand entrance hall and walked out into warm September sunshine. ‘Since Nancy ditched him there’s always a glamorous blonde on his arm, but it’s always a different one. I think it’s safe to say marriage and a family no longer feature in his plans. All he thinks about are the House of Remer steelworks and the Berlin clothing factory.’

‘Clothing factory?’ Paul raised an eyebrow queryingly. ‘What clothing factory? I didn’t know there was one.’

Some yards away from them a Mercedes Benz drew up on the courtyard cobbles and an elderly gentleman stepped from it, his naval-uniformed chest resplendent with medals won in the Great War.

‘It only manufactures military clothing.’ Lotti no longer sounded pert and chirpy. ‘And from something Claus let slip to Ilse, it would seem it’s now in production day and night, just as it apparently was in 1913. And you can make of that what you will.’