But Christina was no ordinary outsider and her presence in a Jewish family extraordinary. The first outsider, Howard’s Aunt Lyn, was by now part of the family fabric and loved and respected by all. Martin’s wife, though, was a different dish of tea. Moira hadn’t let herself be drawn in, but that was her choice.

Christina hadn’t had a choice. History had decreed the consequences of her marrying Howard. She would require the skin of a rhinoceros not to be aware of his family’s reserve with her.

Howard stroked her hand. When he slipped that gold band on her finger, could either of them then have foreseen this? But hope had not quite died in him.

‘Come home with me, Christina,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s me you’re married to, not my family.’

She managed a wan smile. ‘I have tried many times to tell myself that, Howard. But with your family, it is not true. And England is not home for me. Only for you.’

‘Also for Ben.’

It was the first time either had mentioned their child. As if doing so could be treading dangerous ground, and Howard refrained for the moment from stepping farther in that direction, lest doing so smash to smithereens his fragile hope.

‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you,’ he told his wife.

Christina put that to the test. ‘Then come to live with me in Munich.’

To Howard it sounded like an ultimatum. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, ‘we have to live where my livelihood is.’

‘My father would find for you a place in his business.’

‘What do I know about printing?’

‘You would not work in the print shop. His head clerk in the office is soon to retire. A replacement will be needed.’

Howard had a vision of himself kowtowing to his arrogant father-in-law and blotted it out. ‘No thanks, Christina. I’ve worked with my own father since I left school and one day his business will be mine.’

‘But you would not live in Germany on principle, would you?’

Howard thought of how seeing ‘Dachaustrasse’ on the street signs of the broad highway that bore that name always caused him to avert his eyes. Of the way he found it impossible to pass by the police station in the city centre without picturing what the Gestapo must have inflicted there upon their innocent victims. Of how he had not yet been able to bring himself to visit Dachau.

Since he and Christina had reached the point when total honesty was required – and possibly the point of no return – he replied, ‘Leaving principle out of it, the answer to your question is no, I couldn’t live in Germany. And it beats me how any Jew can.’

Christina got up and went to gaze through the window. For Howard it was as if the ghost stalking them had reached out and touched him with icy fingers.