Wilde hadn’t quite finished reading, but the door opened and Vanderberg backed in carrying a tray with cups, coffee pot, milk and sugar.

‘Coffee, Tom. Just like they make it in the States. Sorry to keep you so long, but you know, I wasn’t expecting such an esteemed visitor this morning.’

They chatted aimlessly for a few minutes and drank their coffee. In the gaps, Wilde finished his reading.

Geli gave birth to Klara in the village of Braundorf in March 1931. She was taken into the care of a couple whose names I know but have not met. They knew the child’s history and the danger of revealing the truth, and so they removed themselves to Germany, because the Hitlers and Raubals were too well known in that part of Austria. And for ten years they have been bringing up the child as their own. I’m pretty sure she has no idea of her true parentage.

Two weeks ago everything changed. No, I have to go back a bit first. September 1931 is when it changed – the time of Geli’s death. You may not have heard of a man called Martin Bormann, but you will. Some believe him to be the most dangerous man in Germany other than Hitler himself. It’s said he wields more power than Göring, Himmler, Goebbels or Heydrich because he is Hitler’s gatekeeper. No one can get to the Führer without Bormann’s say-so. He signs all the edicts, controls the finances, translates the Führer’s decisions into actions. He is violently loathed by all and sundry, high and low. Everyone save Hitler, in fact – Hitler depends upon him utterly. He tells Bormann to do something, it gets done. They call him the Brown Eminence. But that’s now.

Back then in 1931, Bormann was a nobody. But he was an ambitious, ruthless nobody. In the summer of that year he discovered the truth about Geli Raubal’s absence the previous winter. Did her mother reveal it in drink? I don’t know the answer to that. But he certainly found out – and he wanted to discover more. He realised the power he could wield with such knowledge. When Hitler departed on his campaigning tour, it is believed Bormann went to see Geli at the Munich apartment and demanded the truth. Where was the baby? My source speculates that he threatened her and when she refused to talk and, indeed, threatened him back, he shot her in blind panic, then made it look like suicide. He’s been terrified ever since that the truth would come out – that his meteoric rise would end in disgrace and the guillotine. Because whatever Hitler might have thought about Geli being pregnant, there is no doubt he loved her. Whether sexually or platonically can be debated, but love her, he did. Her room hasn’t been touched since the day she died. It’s like a shrine. Every day his housekeeper brings fresh flowers. She was the only woman Hitler has ever loved.