‘Wire her up.’ The voice that now came from beyond the arc light seemed to be completely disembodied as it said dispassionately, ‘But be careful of the voltage. We want her to talk, and she can’t do that if she’s dead.’

It was then, as she was dragged from the chair to the table and as they were strapping her down, that the telephone rang.

In the minutes after Lotti’s telephone call, Max acted with ice-cool professionalism. His first priority was the safe abandonment of the Wasserman house. As it was likely that all the conspirators’ identities were now compromised, he was emphatic that Nicholas didn’t risk returning to his home, but that he went instead to a house pre-arranged as being safe.

‘I’ll contact Ilse,’ he said. ‘She’ll be with you within half an hour. And then you’re to lie low, Nicholas. If there are going to be any arrests, we’ll know very soon.’

‘And the assassination attempt?’ Nicholas had been grey-faced. ‘Can we risk going ahead with it?’

‘Not as scheduled—and not in the future with the same group of people. Not till you know who informed on you.’

From then on, his concern had been Lotti. Where had she been when she had made her telephone call? Where was she now? And how had she become privy to the information that those plotting to kill Hitler were meeting at the Wasserman house and that all of them were about to be arrested?

Thankful there was no air raid, he went to the small restaurant she regularly worked at, only to be told that she had taken the entire day off in order to spend time with a friend she hadn’t seen for a long time and who was visiting Berlin. Well aware he was the friend in question, he then made immediately for her flat in Lützowstrasse.

At first he thought no one was home and then, with the utmost reluctance, one of Lotti’s flatmates opened the door to him.

‘It’s Max,’ he said to the dishevelled-looking girl. ‘Lotti’s cousin. Where is she, do you know?’

‘They’ve taken her.’ The girl’s fingers, as she held the door open a mere crack, trembled. ‘They came for her about an hour and a half ago.’

‘Gestapo?’

She nodded.

Fear fogged his throat. An hour and a half ago. It was just possible she was still waiting to be questioned. It was just possible she was still unhurt. Possible, but not very likely.

The door closed in his face and he swung round, looking down the darkened steps into the blacked-out street, saying savagely beneath his breath: ‘Think, Max. Think!’

Lotti hadn’t known about the Grunewald meeting from him or from Nicholas. Therefore it was something she had overheard and the only place Lotti was likely to overhear anything was in a club. A club these days meant soldiers on leave and SS men. He could quite easily envisage what the scenario had been and why the finger of suspicion had pointed at her so blatantly when the SS had descended on the Wasserman house and found it empty.