‘I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, among the large German community there, but my mother came from just outside Lexington, a little way south, in Kentucky. Her family had a very successful stud farm, but when my grandfather died my grandmother sold the farm and moved the family lock, stock and barrel to Cincinnati where they lived in suburban comfort. My father was over from Germany visiting relatives – neighbours of ours – when he met my mother. It was a quick courtship in the quiet days before the Great War. And I followed soon after.’

‘When did you first come to Germany?’

‘Oh, that would have been 1912, when I was two, and we stayed for the duration. I grew up mostly speaking German. In 1919 things were so bad in post-war Germany that we moved back to America. My father’s an oil man, so it was the obvious place to be. But we travelled back and forth, and the strange thing was that much as I loved America, Germany always felt like home. You probably don’t understand that, Tom.’

‘Oh, I understand. I’m a mongrel, too. Half American, half Irish, largely raised in England.’

‘The thing is, Germany began to feel less like home after the election of 1933, but by then I’d met Werner Somerfeld and, well, his home was my home.’

He wondered why she hadn’t started a family of her own, but that was not something you could really ask. She read his mind.

‘Three miscarriages in three years,’ she said. ‘The doctors said that was it, that I’d never bring a child to term. That was very hard for us. I suppose that’s when Werner and I began to drift apart a little. He wasn’t happy at the thought of not having an heir. The most important thing in the world for one of his class. And so he went his way, and I went mine, without ever separating or thinking of divorce. Still best of friends, I still loved him, I was still devastated when he died.’

This was all touching on intimate places where the pain was still too raw. They both recognised it.

‘Ach, Gott in bloody Himmel, Tom – enough of this maudlin stuff. We have enough problems as it is.’

He smiled at her. She could be difficult, but she was brave and had principles.

‘What are you going to do, Sunny? You haven’t told me whether you are coming to England with us. I hope you are – because I’m hardly qualified to care for a ten-year-old girl on my own, even if the journey is relatively quick.’

‘I’ll come as far as Sweden, that’s all. Schmidt will bring me home so that I can continue my work against these devils. After that, you’re on your own. You’ll be fine with the bloody Narzisse. She likes you better than me.’

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