Two coffees were served, accompanied by the brandies, both doubles. Leon knew, but Gerhard did not, that there was a pleasant garden at the back of the hotel at which they were dining, where one could sit in the shade and be waited on hand and foot. Harriet was under strict instructions to take Saffron outside and remain there until further notice.

‘I’ll send a boy to fetch you when we’re done,’ Leon had said.

‘Go easy on the poor man,’ Harriet had warned him. ‘He’s not well and Saffron adores him. If you make an enemy of him, you’ll be making an enemy of her too.’

Leon had grunted at that, but he loved his daughter very deeply and had learned to trust and respect her. She would not have chosen this man, let alone waited all war for him, unless he deserved it. Still, Leon wanted to see for himself what his prospective son-in-law was made of.

He let Gerhard savour his first sip of brandy and said, ‘So, you want to marry my daughter, eh?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Gerhard said, no pleading or ingratiation in his voice, a straightforward statement of fact.

‘You know that I will kill you if you ever harm a hair on her head.’

Gerhard surprised Leon. He gave another one of his gently amused smiles and replied, ‘If I ever harmed Saffron, you would not need to kill me. She would already have done it herself.’

Leon could not help himself. He laughed. ‘Well said! Of course she would. But could you defend yourself against her, eh?’

Gerhard shrugged. ‘At the moment, no, I could not defend myself against a small child. But when I am well again and have my full strength, I am not a bully, Mr Courtney – not like my father – but I am not a weakling either, and . . .’ He paused, grimaced, thought for a second and said, ‘I flew my first combat mission over Poland at dawn on 1 September 1939, the first morning of the war. I was on active duty continuously from then until my arrest in September 1944. Looking back, let me tell you what I can truly be proud of. I always did my best to care for the men under my command. I was awarded some of the highest medals for gallantry that my country has to offer. And finally, the most important thing . . . All those medals were stripped from me, along with my rank, when I stood in a Berlin courtroom and refused to save myself from prison by swearing my loyalty to that murderous lunatic Adolf Hitler.

‘I tell you this, Mr Courtney, so you appreciate I am not a weak man, either physically or morally. We both know that Saffron will never, ever let a man dominate her. But also she could never love a man who let her dominate him. And she does love me. So we are equal.’