With great difficulty he said, ‘How? How would she have died?’

The skin was drawn tight across Nicholas’s cheekbones and white lines etched his mouth. ‘The penalty for high treason,’ he said, ‘is beheading by the guillotine.’

Paul swayed slightly and then swung away from him, rushing over to the edge of the pavement to be violently sick in the street.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Berlin, June 1941

Even though there was an air raid in progress, Nicholas continued dressing for his and Ilse’s evening appointment—dinner with the Radcliffs, an American couple they had met via Paul. Before being posted to Berlin, Robert Radcliff had for many years been with the US Embassy in Russia and Nicholas had high hopes that the evening would be an interesting one.

He continued wrestling with the collar-button of his evening shirt, wishing Ilse would emerge from the bathroom in order to help him and knowing that as long as the raid continued it wasn’t very likely.

Because there was only a small window in the bathroom, Ilse had decided it was the safest room to be in when bombs were falling. That they would seek refuge in shelters only if caught out by an air raid when on the street or in a public place was something they had mutually decided upon long ago, but though he had nerves like steel, Ilse didn’t. RAF air raids, especially of late when they had become almost nightly occurrences, shot her nerves to pieces.

With his stiff collar finally secured to his shirt he reached for his tie. As he tied a bow with practised expertise he wondered what Robert Radcliff’s thoughts were on the fast-approaching complete breakdown of any kind of friendly relations between Germany and Russia.

‘Does he know a German attack on Russia is only weeks, possibly days, away?’ he had asked Paul.

‘American Embassy officials know the Nazi-Soviet honeymoon is over,’ Paul had said drily, ‘but they find it hard to believe Hitler would stretch himself so thin as to invade a country the size of Russia when the war in the West is still blatantly unresolved.’

As if to remind him that it was still dreadfully unresolved there was a huge explosion. A bomb fell near to the apartment, mirrors and pictures fell off the walls and the floors shook.

‘Dear God!’ Ilse flew into the bedroom, wearing a white silk cocktail dress, her face ashen. ‘Have we been hit? Are we on fire?’

Over the deafening thunder of answering flak guns, Nicholas shook his head.

‘No. It fell in Wilhelmstrasse, I think. They will have been trying for a direct hit on government offices.’

She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Sorry for being such a craven coward, darling. It’s just that I really did think we’d been hit and—‘

He put his arms around her, pulling her close, uncaring that she already had make-up on and that he would get traces of face powder on his evening shirt.

‘You’re not a coward, darling,’ he said thickly. ‘Far from it.’