He gave her his gentle smile—his father’s smile—and said, ‘I love you too, Hester. More than life itself. But I daren’t kiss you. If I do, I’ll be more than minutes late getting to Whitehall. I’ll be hours late.’

‘Tough,’ she said and, raising herself on her toes, she pressed her softly parted lips against his.

Later, when he had gone haring off to find a taxi and she had cleared the breakfast things, she knew that she too was going to be late for work. Her job in the book department at Harrods was important to her and she whirled around their bedroom, putting on powder and a dash of lipstick, pulling a comb through her shoulder-length hair, checking she had her door keys in her handbag.

She was just about to leave when the telephone rang.

For a second, she debated whether to answer it or not and then, aware it might be Vicky calling her, threw her handbag down onto a chair and lifted the receiver.

‘Frau Remer?’

It was a woman’s voice—and not one she was familiar with.

‘Speaking,’ she said a trifle breathlessly, automatically responding to Frau, by replying in German.

‘I am Frau Debuss. I live in the apartment next to your parents.’

The voice was elderly and unsteady—and frightened.

Hester felt her blood run cold, felt her hand become suddenly slippery with sweat.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ she demanded, her voice sharp with fear. ‘Has there been an accident?’

‘No. No accident.’

The line was so crackly with static that the word ‘Nein’ was barely intelligible.

‘What is it, then, Frau Debuss? What has happened?’

‘Your mother has been sick for days and your father has been nursing her, but now…this morning…he has collapsed. I think he has had a heart attack, Frau Remer, but I know no one else to call and the hospitals no longer accept Jews and—‘

The line went dead.

Frantically, Hester pressed the rest repeatedly, but all she met with was the regular dialling tone.

She dialled the operator, looking at her watch as she did so. It was nearly nine-thirty. If she left immediately she could be on a cross-Channel ferry in less than two hours.

‘Can I help you?’ a female voice said tinnily in her ear.

‘I received an overseas call from Berlin a minute or so ago, but was cut off. Can you trace the number for me?’

‘It’s doubtful, madam, but I’ll try. Your number please?’

Hester gave it, already knowing she was wasting precious minutes. Even if by some miracle she were reconnected to her mother’s neighbour, it would make no difference to the situation. Her mother was ill and her father was quite possibly dying, or dead.

‘I’m trying to connect with the Folkestone exchange, madam, who will then connect me with the Bremen exchange who will then try to connect to the Berlin exchange—‘

Hester slammed the phone down. She hadn’t time to waste on what she was quite sure was a useless exercise.