She pursed her lips. That such an assumption would be wrong was something she would stake her life on. Proving it would be another matter. There was also the question of whether or not he had used slave labour. If he had, that too could possibly damn him to years of imprisonment.

Though she was no longer in love with him, the prospect of his being imprisoned cut through her like a knife. Leo, from whom she had no secrets, had said to her, ‘The Ruhr lies in the British zone, Nance. That means the House of Remer steelworks will be a direct British responsibility and it will be easier for you to get information about him. If the steelworks had been in an area of Soviet responsibility, there’d be no chance.’

Thoughts of the husband with whom she was so very compatible, cheered her. He always made everything seem possible. ‘The Remer steelworks and factories may seem gigantic to you and to the rest of your family,’ he had said, his bear-like bulk comfortably ensconced in a leather club chair, a whisky and soda in one hand, ‘but in relation to the size of the Krupp steelworks and armaments factories, the House of Remer is small fry. You may well find that the Allies have their hands too full with the really big fish to pay him much attention, other than confiscating his personal wealth and razing the House of Remer steelworks and factories to the ground.’

Aware of how fortunate she was at having a press pass in her shirt pocket and of being in a position to ferret out information at first hand, she tucked her thumbs down her trouser waistband and, with all the undaunted optimism that was so much a part of her character, and out of deference to her companion, began whistling ‘Dixie’.

Lotti slammed the door of the tiny flat in Waltraudstrasse that she, her mother, Ilse and Hester had been living in ever since one of the walls of the Charlottenburg apartment block had collapsed under mortar fire in the last days before the surrender. As it had collapsed on top of the lift shaft, burying the body lying at the bottom of it under tons of masonry, and as no one had been in the cellar when it had come tumbling down, she viewed the incident as an act of God, not an act of war.

It was a gloriously hot day and she was wearing one of the silk summer dresses Ilse had retrieved from the apartment she had lived in with Nicholas, an apartment that, being both spacious and central and in the British sector, had been requisitioned by the British. The feel of the silk against her skin and of the sun on her bare legs was a sensation of such pleasure it was almost sexual.

In the first few weeks after the surrender, even though Ilse had retrieved many items of clothing from the apartment, it was not the type of clothing they could wear. The Russian rampage had continued until the arrival of the Americans and the British, and the only way of trying to combat it had been to try and look as ugly as possible and to dress in heavy shapeless sweaters and baggy trousers. Even after the threat of rape had begun to fade, silk summer dresses had been way out of the question because she and Hester had, out of necessity, become Trümmerfrauen.