Adam sighed. ‘Oh, who knows? They always seemed to want each other more when they hated one another.’

‘What do you mean?’ I needed to know if Nick’s desire for Lorelei had crowded out any real feelings for me.

He sucked in a deep breath. ‘Well, I remember a dinner party at the house.’ He paused. ‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’

‘Yes,’ I said firmly.

‘Your choice. I remember dinner at their house – Lorelei’s house now – all through the meal they were needling each other. “Nick thinks he’s very amusing; it’s lucky somebody does.” “Lorelei looks like she needs to be taught a lesson – better make it a simple one.” In the end, she threw her wine at him and he jumped up, ran around the table and slapped her. After that we didn’t see them for an hour, only heard them upstairs making the furniture bounce on the floorboards.’ His voice drifted. ‘You look so much like her, you know.’

So Lorelei was engaged to a foreigner, or to someone in the DUK who could get her out if she were granted a marriage exit visa. She had therefore made a deal with Fellowman: she would put him in contact with the American doctor who supplied the medicines in return for that visa. But Nick found out about their deal. And then Adam told him Lorelei was pregnant with his child.

‘She met Ian Fellowman at your parties, didn’t she?’ I asked.

‘Yes. But I –’

‘What medicine was she supplying him with?’ I wanted to know everything now.

Another pause. ‘Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but I was told Comrade Burgess picked up a dose of the clap – that’s why he wasn’t around on Liberation Day. Some nice little soldier, they say.’ There had certainly been rumours about Guy Burgess for a long time. ‘The Americans have these wonderful new antibiotics that clear it right up, so Ian was getting some for him. Besides, Guy could hardly go to one of the state doctors, could he? The Secs would be looking through his files before he had even left the room. No, the Party doesn’t like nancies very much. All that sex without making babies. It interferes with your duty to the state. Very bad for morale.’

On the way home, the train passed a hoarding and I recognized the full-page advert of Britain cut in half, with ten occupied babies’ cribs on the DUK side, nine on ours, and an empty cot bearing the words YOUR CHILD. STRENGTH IN NUMBERS!