The stamps on Ulli’s letters bore a chunky image of a shield-bearer, while the postmark showed the eagle of the Third Reich: it looked like an Egyptian hieroglyph balancing atop a swastika, an inside-out symbol from Sanskrit, as if the Reich couldn’t make up its mind which mystical tradition it most wished to ape. But the address would be written by the flowing, cultivated hand she now knew well. ‘Look, Adi!’ shouted Jelly. ‘Ulli says Willy says Johannes says yes!’

‘Johannes says yes to what?’ Adila whirled across the hall to read the letter over Jelly’s shoulder.

‘He has agreed to let Willy Strecker see the manuscript and assess the concerto! And then they will decide whether to publish it.’

‘Oh, Sai, you should have said yes to Ulli! You have this chance with this lovely young man, and what do you do? You ask him to look for something in a library? Listen. Make him come back here and take you out dancing. Then I will make sure Alec and Adri and I are away and you have the house to yourselves and… ’

Jelly screwed the envelope into a ball and threw it at her sister, who batted it straight back. Soon they were making so much noise that Caesar started to bark and Alec came down to see what was going on.

Their joy was short-lived. After a week had passed, Ulli’s next letter contained something considerably stranger.

My dear Jelly,

The most peculiar piece of news has come to us from the library.

Johannes Joachim, as you know, was the depositor of the Schumann manuscript. The library’s director, Dr Altmann, knows this. But he insists that because the concerto was left there with instructions not to release it for 100 years, that condition must be kept, even though the depositor himself, who first placed that embargo upon it, says that he would like to change the condition!

I’m afraid we are up against a form of bureaucracy that is so rigid – and so exultant, if you like, in the exercising of its authority – that it is unlikely much more can be done at present.

I remember, however, that I made you a promise. I will do everything in my power to keep that promise.

I remain yours, etc.,

Ulli

Jelly re-read it three times to make sure she had understood. The depositor wished to change the conditions of his library deposit. And the library would not implement the change because it went against his original request. This made no sense. Something more had to be behind it. It should have been so simple for Ulli, sanctioned by his respected publishing house, to enter that library, find the manuscript and photograph it. He could only be stopped if someone wanted to stop him. Who could that be? And why?

‘I have every confidence in you, dear Ulli,’ Jelly wrote.