Claus again ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I had reasons for not doing so,’ he said, having no intention of revealing it was because, had he done so, she and Lotti would have demanded they hide Hester and he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of being parted from her.

‘Two years?’ With her arm around Hester’s waist, Lotti stared at him. ‘But for these last two years you’ve been one of Hitler’s key industrialists. You’ve been socializing with people like Göring. You’ve been someone non-Nazis have feared and avoided.’

‘He’s been someone hundreds of non-Nazis have owed their lives to,’ Hester said quietly. ‘I was sent as slave labour from Sachsenhausen concentration camp together with a half-dozen Jehovah’s Witnesses and nearly two hundred Russian Jews. All of those people are still alive. All of them would be dead if it hadn’t been for Claus. And without him being who he is—a leading Nazi industrialist—he couldn’t have saved them. He couldn’t have organized a humane camp for them within the area of the factory. He couldn’t have saved them from starvation by feeding them at his own expense. He couldn’t have ensured their working days were free from beatings and fear. And he’s done exactly the same thing on a much bigger scale at the House of Remer steelworks. He’s insisted on having assigned to him as many slave labourers as possible in order to be able to save them from starvation and torture and almost certain death.’

For a long moment no one spoke and then Ilse crossed the room towards him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry I ever doubted the kind of person you are, Claus,’ she said simply. ‘Forgive me.’

As he hugged Ilse close, Lotti’s eyes met his. ‘No matter how many lives you’ve saved, you’ll still be treated as a war criminal,’ she said, facing reality head-on as always.

‘I know.’ His deep-timbred voice was matter-of-fact. ‘And where the Russians are concerned, my being here is of no protection to you whatsoever. Your best bet is to take food and water and barricade yourselves in the cellar until the worst of the fighting is over and the Americans and British arrive.’

He eyed the kitchen knife in her belt and was moved almost to tears by her gutsy bravery, knowing full well that if she was ever called to use it, whether on her own behalf or on the behalf of others, she would do so unhesitatingly.

‘You’ll need something more than a knife, Lotti,’ he said, taking a pistol and a box of ammunition from his coat pocket.

As she took them from him, low-flying aircraft roared in. This time they weren’t just over the centre of the city: they were over Charlottenburg as well.

The windows vibrated. The Ferdinand Preiss figurines on the display shelves rocked dangerously.

‘I have to go.’ It was the moment Claus had dreaded, the moment when he would have to leave Hester behind him, not knowing when, or if, he would ever see her again.