I knew what he meant. It was a very dangerous question to be asked by any official: did we harbour ideas that the state deemed troublesome? ‘No. We’re not.’ There was a pause.

‘All right.’

Without wanting to, I pictured life without Nick – sitting alone in the house, Hazel in one of the awful communal schools for the children of dissidents. And I thought of the family I would never have with him. Such a sterile and bleak existence, devoid of the brightness and excitement and the hard-to-explain sense of things to come that he had brought to my life just half a year ago.

‘What can we do?’ I asked. Maybe there was a way to show that Nick had had nothing to do with Lorelei’s death; and that, even if she had been subversive, he hadn’t. Tibbot looked uncomfortable. I realized I had said ‘we’ as if he were going to help me. There was no reason that he would. ‘Thank you for coming. You’re putting yourself at risk just being here,’ I said. ‘If they found out you had been talking to me like this, it wouldn’t be good for you, would it?’

‘No, not good.’ He stood up and went to the drinks cabinet. There was a bottle of vodka and a small bottle of scotch. ‘Whisky. Don’t often see it. May I?’

‘Please. I think it was a gift from a patient.’ It was very early to be drinking.

He poured himself a small glass and drank it thoughtfully. There was something melancholy about the way he did it. ‘His daughter,’ he said into his glass.

‘Hazel.’

He kept staring into the drink. ‘How old is she?’

‘Fourteen.’ Forgive me for hoping that her vulnerability would help turn his mind.

He rubbed his brow and drank again, before staring back into the glass. I began to understand his air of sadness. ‘Do you have –’

‘She died.’ There was a long silence before he went on. ‘In ’47. When things weren’t like now. Less stable.’

‘What happened?’

He shook his head and poured a little more into his glass. It looked like an action he had performed many times. ‘If he’s gone, what happens to her?’ he asked.

‘I have no idea,’ I said, truthfully. ‘Lorelei’s mother is alive, but she’s old. She can’t look after a child.’

He drank for the last time and put down the glass. He remained quiet for a while. ‘If we find that he is working against the state, will you drop it?’ he asked.