Elizabeth Radcliff’s mouth rounded on an ‘oh’ of understanding.

‘And as the patron of the German film industry is Goebbels,’ Nicholas said drily, ‘you see why Ilse so much prefers to travel by train and walk in the woods!’

Lotti woke in the early hours of the following morning, her tummy a knot of nerves. Max was due to arrive in Berlin from Munich some time during the day, but whether she would see him or not she had no idea. And she wanted to see him. She wanted to see him so much it was a physical pain.

Her flatmates were still asleep as she washed and dressed. With dancing and jazz music forbidden they, like her, found club work hard to find and, like her, mainly worked as waitresses till late in the evening. The restaurant she worked in was an Italian restaurant, Roma. But she wasn’t going to be working in it today. Today she had kept completely free in the hope that Max would contact her and they would be able to spend a little time together.

A drawback of their spending time together, of course, was that as he only ever treated her as a friend—his best friend—she was always kept abreast of what was happening in his love life. Though the story of his having fallen in love with a Munich girl had been a fabrication for Claus’s benefit, there was a young woman in Munich whom he was regularly dating. A young woman she tried hard not to think about.

Standing before the bathroom mirror she dragged a hairbrush through her sleek, night-black hair. Her hair made it impossible for her to look fashionable, but then she’d never looked fashionable. What she had always looked was different.

Feeling quite certain that Max’s girlfriend in Munich would look extremely fashionable, she gave up on her hair, well aware she should be grateful that the woman in his life was no longer Ilse.

The period of time when Max had been in love with Ilse had been the most difficult she had ever lived through. Ilse had been so deliriously happy at first and, loving her as she did, Lotti had wanted to be happy for her. She had found the task so hard as to be almost impossible.

The relief when, for some unfathomable reason, Ilse had ended her relationship with Max and become engaged to Nicholas, had been so vast she had cried with it. Being jealous of Max’s previous girlfriends had been something she had accustomed herself to. Being jealous of Ilse had been a pain so deep it had nearly unhinged her.

Dressed but still barefoot she padded into the kitchen to make herself a coffee, or what nowadays passed for a coffee. Sun streamed into the kitchen, promising a day of heavy, languorous heat. It was the kind of day to be at Wannsee, sunbathing and swimming. As she waited for the water to boil she pondered on the risks of taking the train to Wannsee. Would Max realize where she had gone? And if he did and went to Wannsee, would he be able to find her?