‘Such wonderful news, Franz. Although I had been looking forward to a new start somewhere else.’

‘I will have to give up the newspaper,’ Vati continues with a frown. ‘My SS duties are too great to keep it on. I’ll promote Josef Heiden to run the paper for me. I trust him completely and he already does so much of the day-to-day work. And, my dear,’ he leans over and pats Mutti’s hand, ‘I was thinking that perhaps we should take a place in the country? To escape to for the odd weekend. We can bring friends and entertain there. What do you say? To make up for staying on here.’

I see a pretty country house, smoke curling from the chimneys, a big garden, perhaps some chickens and a horse or two. Will he take Hilda Müller and his other children there? His two families, alternating weekends.

My stomach contracts and vomit rises, stinging my throat but I force it down.

‘Vera? Is that you?’ Mutti calls as footsteps sound in the hall.

‘Yes, Frau Heinrich?’ Vera appears in the doorway in her coat. ‘I forgot to pick up the washing earlier.’

‘Ah good, I have some letters for you to post,’ Mutti says, leaving the room to fetch them.

‘So, what do you think, Herta, eh? Your father, climbing to the very top of the ladder?’

‘Perhaps,’ I say before I have time to really think through what I’m saying, ‘in such a position you will think hard about some of the policies against the Jews.’

His chair creaks as he leans towards me, eyes instantly as frozen and hard as glass.

‘Don’t you ever say such a thing again,’ he says, his voice gritty. ‘I will never forget what you have done, girl, how you blackmailed me. The more I think about it…’ He presses his mouth together, fists clenched. ‘Were it ever to get out, it would jeopardise everything. The stakes are higher than ever.’ He opens his mouth to say more, but Mutti is back in the room. He shuts it and sits back. He doesn’t look at me again.

And all I feel is the quickening thud, thud, thud, of my heart.

*

The following afternoon, at 3 p.m. exactly, Tomas knocks for me. Ingrid smirks as Kuschi and I leave the house. She doesn’t need to say a word; the look on her face is clear enough. In only a few days she leaves for her Lebensborn home, to become impregnated with the seed of a perfect SS officer specimen. Ergo, she is superior in every way to me. I cannot wait for her, and all that she knows of me, to be gone. I pray that she chooses never to come back.

Rosental park is deserted as Tomas and I walk side by side, Kuschi sniffing along eagerly out in front. A brief flurry of snow falls but fails to settle on the sodden ground.

‘Damned cold,’ Tomas comments, screwing up his face, digging his chin deeper into his turned-up collar. His breath momentarily steams up his glasses. ‘Sorry.’