‘Oh dear. Has he got another?’

‘There’s none to be found.’ Tomas runs my glove along the top of a railing, the snow mounding in front until it falls off the end. ‘We’ve had to move in with my uncle’s family above his cobbler’s shop on Hallische Strasse. We couldn’t pay the rent for our old flat, so we got kicked out.’

‘He could join the Sturmabteilung,’ I say, remembering how Vati had talked of a big SA recruitment drive not so long ago. ‘The Brownshirts always need loads of men,’ I tell him confidently.

Tomas half-chokes, half-laughs. ‘He’d rather we starved than join the SA. He’ll have nothing to do with those thugs.’ He spits out the word. ‘Even though they have a uniform and weapons, like a proper army.’ He looks wistful now, at the thought of weapons.

There’s trouble with Röhm, I recall Vati recently saying to Mutti. Two million hungry men. Out of control. It’ll need to be dealt with…

‘What does your mother think he should do?’

‘She doesn’t care, provided he puts food on the table. And he’s not doing that at the moment. Just slouching about, like a good-for-nothing.’ He sucks in a long breath.

We walk between the tall stone pillars marking the entrance to the park. The wide expanse of Rosental stretches away, so blindingly white it hurts my eyes.

‘Can’t he even get a job in a factory?’

Tomas shakes his head. ‘I told you. There’s none to be had. You’re so lucky to be—Wow, this snow is thick.’ He kicks at it and ventures off the path onto untrodden snow – and sinks to the top of his boots.

We try to run and stumble. Laughing, we gather armfuls of the fluffy, white powder.

There’s a swooshing noise and a snowball hits Tomas on the back of the neck with savage force. Gasping for breath, he scrabbles at the lump of snow and ice wedged between his bare skin and the collar of his thin coat. A second one, stingingly accurate, hits the side of his head.

‘Ow!’ He rubs the spot as, mouths open, whooping and yelling, four boys run from behind shrubbery, pelting us with hard lumps of gritty snow. I recognise the Brandt brothers from our old school. They’ve always had it in for Tomas. Just our luck to bump into them now.

The boys surround him, nudging me out of the way. I stand outside the circle while they murmur in low voices. One of them kicks lumps of snow at Tomas’s skinny bare knees. A knot of anger forms in my belly. There’s four of them and one of him. How’s that fair?

‘Poor baby Tom Tom,’ Ernst Brandt says. ‘His vati won’t let him join the Jungvolk.’ He laughs. ‘He’d never survive if he did. He’d get beaten for wetting the bed!’ The other boys laugh too.

‘I don’t wet the bed, stupid,’ Tomas says, throwing his shoulder against Ernst, trying to shove his way outside the circle.