He shook his head, leaning towards her, his large hands clasped loosely between his knees. ‘No. I’m a rose-breeder. I have a large horticultural nursery in Yorkshire. I’m in Berlin because I have family here.’

The train pulled into the station. Simultaneously, they rose to their feet. Companionably, they stepped off the train and began making their way towards the turnstile. ‘Would you have a tea or a coffee with me before you go to your aunt’s?’ he asked, knowing that his whole life depended on her answer.

She paused, looking up at him, her eyes the green of the River Spree. ‘I’d like to do that very much,’ she said, and as they walked through the turnstile and out of the station Paul knew that despite all the nightmares—the imminence of war, Ilse’s beating, Hester’s arrest—something glorious had happened.

It seemed crazy, but he was certain he had just met the love of his life. And he knew something else as well. He wouldn’t be returning to England with Vicky and Hugo. He would be staying in Berlin. Any other alternative was now utterly unthinkable.

Wearing a black headscarf to cover her fair hair and the oldest, shabbiest black coat Zelda’s cleaning lady possessed, Vicky made her way to what had been the Dresners’ apartment block.

The tension on the streets was palpable. Uniformed men were everywhere, as were swastika-emblazoned flags. Troops in every kind of moving vehicle, vans, trucks, even grocery lorries, were pouring through the city, heading east, presumably in the direction of the Polish border. As she passed a newspaper kiosk she saw a copy of the Voelkischer Beobachter with the headline ‘THE FüHRER SAYS THE HOUR IS GRAVE!’ Another newspaper proclaimed in headlines inches high: ‘WHOLE OF POLAND IN WAR FEVER! POLAND MOBILIZES 1,500,000 MEN!’

There was no mention of the German troops rushing towards the border. No mention that any action of Poland’s was in self-defence against naked German aggression. Aware there was no newspaper in Germany—and hadn’t been for a long, long time—allowed to give the German people facts, not lies, Vicky reached the apartment block and rang the bell marked ‘Debuss’.

It rang unanswered for several minutes and then the downstairs door was finally opened by a terrified-looking young girl.

‘I’m Mrs Priestley, Hester Remer’s mother-in-law,’ Vicky said swiftly before the door should be shut in her face. ‘I’d like to speak to Frau Debuss, if I may.’

The girl looked uncertain and Vicky said gently, ‘It really is most important that I speak to Frau Debuss.’

Still looking very doubtful the girl turned and began to lead the way up the communal stone stairs.

Vicky felt her stomach muscles clench. What she was hoping to find out was if Frau Debuss knew of the reason for Hester’s arrest. Had it simply been one of the senseless, arbitrary arrests carried out in their hundreds by the Gestapo, or had it been because Hester’s association with the forgery ring had become known to them?