Even in the same instant as asking herself the questions, she knew the answers. As children, Wannsee had been their favourite destination whenever the days were hot and long and free of schoolwork. When she wasn’t to be found at the apartment or at the Roma, he would know where she would be and, despite the numerous beaches dotted alongside the lakeshore being crowded on a day like today, he would also be able to find her. Years ago, Vicky had found a swimming and picnicking place well away from the crowds that had become a favourite with all of them, even Zelda. Woods backed a silver crescent of sand and, though there had been no restaurant near by when they were children, there was one now. A pretty little restaurant where diners could eat overlooking the water. It was a restaurant she and Max often patronized and either it, or the secluded bay, was where he would instinctively assume her to be.

She went back into the bedroom and stuffed a swimming costume and towel into her bag. The two girls she shared the room with didn’t stir and leaving them still sleeping, she let herself out of the flat, hoping against hope that Max would join her at Wannsee, even if he couldn’t do so for very long.

Soldiers and civilians were already on the streets, clearing up the rubble caused by the previous night’s raid. Her area of the city hadn’t been badly hit, but by the time she reached the train station it was obvious that the area around it hadn’t been so lucky. Some shattered buildings were smoking and one or two fires still burned.

Praying that no one she loved had come to harm she entered the S-Bahn station, wondering if Max was striding through Anhalter Bahnhof, the station the trains from Munich terminated at.

He had told her enough for her to be able to guess at his reason for being in Berlin. It would be in order that he could meet up with Nicholas and other members of what she always thought of as the conspiracy. The plot.

How much Ilse knew about it, she didn’t know. It wasn’t something they ever spoke about.

She boarded the Potsdam, via Wannsee, train, aware of how ironic it was that she and Ilse—and everyone in the conspiracy—were aiding and abetting a British intelligence agent when they were all such loyal Germans.

That, though, was the crux of it. It was because they were such loyal Germans—because they loved their country so deeply—that they wanted to free it from Hitler’s Nazi grip and form a new government. An anti-Nazi government that would restore individual freedom and be able to sue for peace with Britain before Hitler brought even further nightmares upon the country by engaging it in an invasion of Russia. And that was what Max wanted too. Despite his English upbringing he was, at heart, just as much of a Berliner as she was.