The coffee and pastries were brought to the table, but Marianne continued musing. Laura and Jake too had fallen silent. Matters more pressing than the past would not fail to make their mark upon Howard, she thought, watching Jake heap sugar into his cup and recalling her own horror when she had read in The Times – or was it in the Guardian? – about a board game called Dachau being on sale here. That the heinous history of that concentration camp was serving as a cosy family entertainment in some German homes.

Eventually, it was withdrawn from the market, and no doubt on government orders. Successive German governments had since the war fallen over backwards to ensure that their country was seen to be trying to make amends for the unmendable.

But there are times, thought Marianne, when that seems no more than a cosmetic exercise. How could it not when the pus kept seeping from a still festering boil?

An analogy not conducive to enjoying the custard in the mille-feuille on her plate. Nor was it just her unfortunate choice of imagery that caused her to put down her fork. She had had her fill of what the senior citizens blithely feeding their faces represented for her.

‘Whenever you two are ready, I’ll be happy to leave,’ she said to Laura and Jake.

‘And there’s no need to say why,’ Laura replied.

That evening the three were transported in style to Karin’s home. Her father had sent his Rolls to fetch them, the chauffeur’s uniform a matching shade of grey.

The house and grounds too lived up to their expectations. What the estate agents back home could genuinely describe as designed for gracious living, thought Marianne as the car glided along a broad, curving drive bordered by tall trees and halted outside a mansion reminiscent of the country hotels in which she and Ralph had sometimes spent weekends.

The white-haired couple who greeted them did not have the aura of nouveau riche, which Marianne had half expected. There was something about Walter and Lili Schulmann that told you the lifestyle they enjoyed now was that from which events had horrendously removed them.

Though both were survivors of the camps, the experiences neither would forget had left no outward mark upon them, Marianne observed while sipping a glass of excellent dry sherry and participating in the pre-dinner conversation in a tastefully furnished drawing room, its colour scheme muted gold and pastel blue, and a vast Chinese carpet underfoot.

She was conjecturing how many years it must have taken to weave the carpet when she heard Ben say doubtfully to Howard, ‘Is the lady in the red dress really my great-aunt, Daddy? I didn’t know I had an English one.’ Ben then glanced at Laura and Jake. ‘And are that lady and gentleman really my cousins?’