She leans across the table, eyes widening. ‘He spoke directly with Herr Himmler, today. Your father really is moving in the highest circles now.’

‘Circles?’

‘Well, I’m no politician, but surely if he has the ear of such people of importance, who trust and rely on him, then,’ she glances around and whispers, ‘promotion may soon be on the way. We could move to Munich, or Berlin.’ She leans back. ‘You know, Herta, I think perhaps that is what I need. A change of scene. Somewhere new. This city, our house – there are just too many memories of Karl. It’s so hard…’ Her voice trembles. ‘Hard to move on.’

‘And me? What about me?’

‘Well,’ she says brightly, ‘soon you will leave the Gymnasium, go to Hausfrau school. Get married, perhaps even have a job for a while. I mean, you said yourself you wanted to travel. There is nothing to hold us here, is there?’

‘I suppose not,’ I mumble, wondering fleetingly if Fräulein Müller and the child will move with us. Then I think about Erna and the resistance she spoke of. I do want to help. I want to do more. With Vati’s promotion, perhaps I’ll have access to information which might be of use to Herr Bäcker, but I shall need to take care. Be vigilant. How on earth can I do any of this if we move away? But that’s all in the future. I’ve spent too long living in a dream of what my future may hold; if I’m to make any difference at all I need to act now. I swill the last of my coffee around the cup.

We leave the Fürstenhof and weave our way through busy streets, full of shoppers, hawkers and workers heading home for their evening meal. The story from this morning’s papers is everywhere, hastily pasted to billboards, screaming from headlines on newspaper racks.

VOM RATH FIGHTS ON!

GERMAN HERO REFUSES TO GIVE UP!

COLD-HEARTED JEW, SPLATTERED IN THE BLOOD OF OUR BRAVE COUNTRYMAN, BRAZENLY TRUMPETS HIS GUILT!

‘And what of this story?’ I ask Mutti. ‘What did Vati say about that?’

‘He said nothing more on the telephone, but he can’t be expected to tell us all about important matters of state.’

It’s an isolated incident, in another country. The papers are making a big issue of it to improve their sales – but I can’t shake a feeling of unease.

‘I’m going to rest,’ Mutti says when we arrive home. ‘I still don’t sleep well and I feel so tired now.’ She smiles thinly.

I sit on the bench in the hallway, listening to her soft tread on the stairs. There is a distant click as Mutti closes her door, and silence settles, cloak-like, over the house.

And then a rustling. I creep towards it and see the door of Vati’s study is ajar. Peeping through the gap I spy him sitting at the desk, head bent over, a stack of papers in his hand.