‘You didn’t think of rebuilding it after the fire, then?’

‘There was no point, Eaton. I already spent most of my time here in Lydia’s house. Why rebuild when I had no intention of moving back next door?’

‘So you just knocked it down, cleared away the rubble and turned it over to cabbages.’

‘And carrots and potatoes – oh, and an Anderson shelter. But let’s get back to my question, shall we? Mr Cashbone – you do the talking. Tell me what you want from me, and tell it straight.’

*

The flight seemed to go on for ever. They had already refuelled in Madrid. Next stop Barcelona, then Lyon, and finally Berlin, weather permitting. Stuttgart was a possible alternative, the pilot had announced. In which case, they would have to wait for another flight there or continue the last leg of their journey by train.

A blonde hostess in a Deutsche Lufthansa uniform with a swastika armband arrived at his side.

‘Would you care for a drink, Herr Esser?’

‘I don’t suppose you have Scotch whisky?’ Wilde said hopefully.

He couldn’t help admiring the woman’s figure and her fresh-faced good looks. For some reason he found himself thinking of newspaper pictures he’d seen of Magda Goebbels, but this woman was younger and a great deal friendlier than he imagined the propaganda minister’s wife would be.

‘I’m sorry, no whisky – but we do have a fine cognac.’

‘I’ll have a shot of that, then. By the way, you speak good English, Fräulein.’

She had already switched languages for his benefit. In truth Wilde was a little put out. He had done a great deal of hard work getting his German up to a good standard. Initially, the tuition had come from a modern-languages professor at Peterhouse, before he was called off to some intelligence outpost to do war work; after that, the professor’s wife, who’d been born in Germany, had taken over, and in the last few days, Mrs Kemp had taken over from her. Wilde was rather pleased with the result; this air hostess seemed less impressed.

‘Thank you, sir. It was required before the war, when I flew on the London route. It is good to practise it. You are American, are you not, Herr Esser?’

‘Indeed I am, with German forebears.’

‘From which part, sir?’

‘My grandfather was an engineer in Krefeld. He moved to New York in 1895. He didn’t intend the move to be permanent, but he met my grandmother, whose family was also of German stock – from Cologne. And then my father came along – and they stayed. I wish I had paid more attention to my German lessons at school.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that, sir. You speak the language extremely well. Anyway, you’ll be made very welcome in the new Germany.’ She bowed her head – almost a curtsy – and gave him a warm smile. ‘I will fetch your drink.’

When he had embarked, the hostess, her colleague and the pilots had all given the Heil Hitler salute, which he had forced himself to return with feigned enthusiasm. But thankfully that had all stopped for the duration of the flight, and he was almost able to imagine himself on a peacetime plane journey.