‘Unter den Linden,’ said the driver regretfully, ‘is on the East Berlin side of the Wall. My children and my grandchildren, they have never known it otherwise,’ he added with a sigh. ‘But I remember when it was not required to have a visa to drive beneath the Brandenberg Gate. When I and my wife – she was then not yet my wife – would stroll on a Sunday along Unter den Linden, the lime trees all about us, and mingle with the rich in the pavement cafes.’

Such was his nostalgia, his listeners could not but be moved. Not just nostalgia, yearning, Marianne registered.

Resentment replaced it. ‘Now, we must think ourselves fortunate persons that we are allowed a day pass into East Berlin!’ he exclaimed while turning the car into Fasanenstrasse. ‘My wife she has living there a cousin with whom she has grown up. But her cousin’s children and grandchildren – to them we are the corrupt capitalists…’

The stocky Berliner shook his grizzled head. ‘Here is Hotel Bristol Kempinski,’ he said, collecting himself.

He pulled up outside the elegant entrance where a porter had hastened to the kerbside to open the taxi door. Another was sweeping invisible litter from the broad steps, a task that seemed to Marianne out of key with the top hat that was part of their livery.

Laura exchanged a smile with her. ‘I didn’t stay in such style when I came to Berlin to take pictures. It must have been considered too expensive by the magazine I was taking them for.’

Jake paid the taxi-driver and remarked as they entered the hotel, ‘I’m still not comfortable about Karin’s parents paying our hotel bill.’

‘Since they insisted we must be their guests, you must accept it with good grace,’ Laura replied. ‘Howard mentioned that the Kempinski has a pool and a gym. The latter could do wonders for your spare tyre, Jake!’

‘Would you mind, Laura, if while we’re away from home we took a rest from the subject of losing weight?’

Laura’s smile faded. ‘I had briefly let myself forget and now you’ve reminded me. We still can’t get Bessie to stop dieting,’ she told Marianne while they waited at the reception desk.

Laura’s anxiety on that account was no secret to Marianne, but she kept her tone light. ‘Bessie is probably afraid of putting the pounds back on, and you must admit she doesn’t qualify to be called Pudge any more!’

‘Jeremy still calls her that, though, and I think he always will. That could be why—’

‘If I may just have the last word on the matter,’ Jake cut in, ‘after which I don’t want it raising on this trip again, it isn’t for a kid of Bessie’s age to make her own decisions. You ought not to have allowed it, Laura.’