Thank you.

‘First floor,’ she says, through the intercom.

Hilda Müller is waiting for me outside her front door. She’s just as I remember her. The same light brown hair, tightly plaited and folded up around her head, little pink ears, fat lips. She is young. Very young compared to Vati. Mid-twenties at a guess. Certainly closer to my age than his. We stare at each other for a few moments, then she beckons me inside.

‘Your father – he’s been out all night. But he’s on his way,’ she says.

The flat is larger than I expected. Bright, tidy and furnished in a modern, simple style. Nothing like the fussy antiques filling our house. I follow Fräulein Müller’s square, solid figure into the sitting room. What can Vati see in this woman? Apart from her youth, she is nothing compared to elegant Mutti.

I sit on the edge of a patterned sofa while the woman hovers, not meeting my eyes. Awkwardness crouches between us like a nervous dog.

‘May I have a glass of water please, Fräulein Müller?’ I ask at last.

‘Of course, I should have offered. And it’s Hilda, please.’ She hurries off to the kitchen.

Her nervousness has the opposite effect on me. I’m suddenly calm and in control. After all, it’s Hilda who is in the wrong, not me. It’s as if I’m the adult and she the naughty child.

Hilda returns with a glass of water. I drain it.

‘You were thirsty,’ she says with a half-smile. ‘Would you like another?’

Before I can answer, a little girl appears wearing a loose pink nightdress. Her fine, curly blonde hair is a creamy cloud around her face. She rubs her eyes as though she has just woken. She is bigger than I remember from that day at the station. She must be what? Three or four years old now? Given the ugliness of the mother, she is remarkably pretty.

The girl stops and regards me with suspicion in her saucer-sized eyes.

‘Who is this, Mutti?’ she asks, not taking her eyes off me.

Hilda sits and lifts the little girl onto her lap.

‘This is Herta,’ she tells her, gently stroking the hair back from her face. ‘She has come to visit. I said she could wait with us until…’ She throws me a glance. ‘Until Herr Heinrich arrives.’

The little girl gasps. ‘Is Vati coming here now? In the morning?’

An electric shock.

She called him Vati.

The girl twists round to look at her mother’s face. Hilda nods and stares down at the carpet, squirms beneath my glare.

‘Yippee!’ the child exclaims, then she turns to me and says, ‘Hello, I’m Sophie. Can you play cat’s cradle? I love cat’s cradle, but I’m not very good. I just learned it. Will you play with me? It’s fun.’ She wriggles off her mother’s lap and runs to fetch some string. She returns, smiling broadly.

I shake my head. ‘Sorry. I don’t know how to play.’