‘Because however unwise I might have thought your marriage, I’ve always been perfectly courteous towards your wife and because an English cousin’s marriage to a Jewess who is now a British subject and resident in England has never been an issue anyone has ever raised with me. Christ, Hugo! Have some sense! Whatever my reasons for being an admirer of the Führer, it isn’t because I’m an anti-Semite. I’ve got more to fill my head with than that twaddle.’

‘It isn’t twaddle when people are dying because of it,’ Max said steelily. ‘But I believe you when you say you’re concerned about Hester. And at bottom, so does Hugo. What you have to take into consideration is how desperate he feels at the moment. You know just as well as we do that when the Gestapo make an arrest there’s no way of telling if that person is going to be seen again. Especially if the person in question is Jewish.’

Claus took in a deep, steadying breath. ‘She’ll be seen again,’ he said with conviction. ‘She’s a British subject. She has a British passport.’

‘Don’t you know anything about what goes on in this country?’ Hugo demanded, almost beside himself with frustration and fear. ‘People disappear. Hester is Jewish. Reinhard Heydrich’s goons in the Gestapo aren’t going to give a damn about her British passport—not when Germany will probably be at war with Britain within days!’

‘The situation with the Jews isn’t as bad as you think,’ Claus began pacifyingly. ‘It’s only those who are itinerant or disturb the peace or who are a danger to the state—‘

It was too much for Hugo. Before Claus could say ‘who are arrested and taken to camps’ Hugo flew at him, punching wildly at his jaw.

Max and Paul immediately leapt forward to intervene, but Claus didn’t need their intervention. Whereas Hugo’s wildly thrown punch was futile, Claus’s economical, but telling punch in return was not. Hugo went flying backwards, falling at his father’s feet.

Lotti ran to his side, helping him to stand.

‘Now you’ve both got that out of your system, can we settle down to the reason we’re all here?’ Vicky said, magisterially unruffled. ‘Claus, I know Göring is no longer anything to do with the Gestapo, but you’re on first-name terms with him and he, presumably, is on first-name terms with Heydrich. Find out all you can for us from the horse’s mouth, will you? Max, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of ideas of your own as to what you can be doing.’

Max nodded agreement, intending to be in touch with Fritz within minutes of leaving the house.

‘While Zelda goes back to sit with Ilse at the hospital, I’m going to speak to every Jewish contact I have. Someone may know something or have heard something.’

‘You’ll have a problem.’

The speaker was Josef and she turned towards him, startled. ‘Jews are completely segregated in Berlin now. And they live under curfew. You’ll be drawing attention to people who can’t afford to have attention drawn to them.’