Images of Berlin ten years previously swirled in Jelly’s memory – nightclubs, jazz, the most outlandishly dressed people she’d ever set eyes on, actors and authors and incredible conductors and singers. It used to be so free, so open.

‘No longer,’ said Tovey. ‘Don’t go, I beg you.’

‘But if I can convince… ’

‘Jelly,’ he interrupted, ‘will you please listen to me? I didn’t want to tell you this… but they have just destroyed all the busts and statues of Onkel Jo, and renamed Joachimstrasse.’

Jelly recoiled. ‘But he was their greatest violinist… ’

‘Yet not an “Aryan”. That is their chief concern.’

‘But it’s stupid! People are the same, they have the same needs and the same duties and – ’

‘I don’t pretend my analytical skills extend anywhere beyond music, let alone to politics. Still, it strikes me that there’s a tipping point in any ideology when facts and sense start to matter less than the imposition of that ideology for its own sake. And then people may decide it’s in their interests to pretend to believe in it, even if they don’t. It’s fascism, Jelly. And even if you yourself might be safe, I personally forbid you to visit a country that’s foisting this upon its people.’

The vandalism against her great-uncle’s legacy stung Jelly as if she’d swallowed a hornet. Everyone would know about her Jewish roots via Joachim. But how could one quarter of one’s inheritance make such a difference?

‘My father was chief of the Budapest police,’ she protested. ‘He was part of the establishment, he was known and respected… ’

‘That won’t hold any sway with the Nazis. Don’t underestimate them. They are pigs rooting for the truffle that is power, and when they smell it there’s no stopping them.’

‘Donald – you don’t think it’ll happen here too, do you?’

‘Heaven willing, the majority of the British are too set in their ways to adopt anything so crudely alien,’ Tovey remarked. ‘But there are elements, especially in the upper crust of society and also among the disaffected unemployed, who are taken with Oswald Mosley, and we cannot deny they would like it to do so.’

‘Whatever would happen to me and Adila?’

Tovey gave her a quick and penetrating glance. ‘Try not to worry about it, Jelly. Keep vigilant and stay away from trouble. Meanwhile, our concern is that concerto… ’

Jelly, unsettled, took stock. ‘So the concerto is in Germany; Germany is ruled by the Nazis; and I can’t go.’

‘Brava.’

She drummed her heels in frustration. ‘If we’d had this message a year ago, or two, there’d have been no problem. Instead, the “messengers” had to appear just after Hitler took over! Why?’

Tovey sipped coffee, cold in its cup. ‘I wonder that as well.’