I push my way roughly back through the crowd and run across the road to the greengrocers. ‘Hateful, rotten cow,’ I say out loud. Please let that horrible woman be wrong. Please don’t let them have Walter.

Herr Schloss stands in a narrow doorway, to the side of the shop, talking to a bunch of angry youths.

‘You’re as bad as they are, if you hide the buggers in with you,’ one is saying.

‘Send ’em out,’ adds another.

‘These are women and children, frightened to death. I’m not sending them out to face you lot,’ Schloss tells them firmly.

‘Then we’ll have to smash your windows in and fetch ’em out ourselves,’ says the first youth, raising a wooden bat.

‘Now, now!’ Herr Schloss raises his hands. ‘Be reasonable. You’ve no argument with these poor souls. Look, I’ve no wish to have ’em in my place, I can tell you. But their house is burning down and they’ve nowhere to go tonight.’ He points at the burning building. ‘I’ll send them on their way first thing. You’ve no argument with me, lads.’

The boys exchange glances.

‘They’ll be gone first thing in the morning, I give you my word,’ Herr Schloss repeats firmly.

‘They’d better be,’ growls one of the youths. ‘We’ll be back early, Schloss, and if they’re not, expect the worst.’ He turns and walks away, the others following him.

Herr Schloss steps back to close the door and I rush forward.

‘Please!’ I shove my foot in the doorway. ‘Please! I want to help.’

He grabs my arm and pulls me through the door, slamming it shut behind me. He stares at me, raising his eyebrows high.

‘I’m a friend of Walter Keller,’ I explain. ‘Is he here? Is Walter here?’

A woman appears at the top of the stairs. Walter’s mother. I recognise her instantly. But she’s thinner, older and more haggard than I remember. She walks slowly down the stairs, her clothes smudged and dirty. Tears leak from her eyes and make a pathway through the soot on her cheeks. Another, plumper, woman follows her down with three children. Walter’s cousins and aunt?

‘It’s okay, Herr Schloss,’ Walter’s mother says in a soft voice. ‘Who are you?’ She peers at me.

‘I’m Herta Heinrich.’

She instantly recoils.

‘Walter was once great friends with my brother,’ I rush on. ‘We bumped into one another a few months’ back.’

‘I know,’ she says, her tone hostile now. ‘He told me. And I remember how upset—’

‘Frau Keller, I’m not making any excuses for my family. But the important thing is Walter. Is he safe?’

She shakes her head. ‘They have them all.’ Her cheeks are pinched and her lips drawn back, reminding me of a cornered, snarling dog. ‘My husband, my son and my husband’s brother. Taken into custody by the SS, only this time they said they will be transferring all of them to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in the morning.’

The night blackens. I’ve failed him. The world tilts sideways and I grab the banister to steady myself.