I squirm on the bench. If I hadn’t gone to Vati with Tomas, someone else would have, sooner or later. The whole family might have had to pay a price, so the reality is, I helped them.

‘We did the right thing, Tomas,’ I say softly. ‘I know it’s been hard for you, but everyone knows you are the hero here.’

Erna looks from one of us to the other.

‘I’m sure you did,’ she says at last. ‘But I hear that some of these prison deaths aren’t as accidental as they might at first seem. There are rumours, awful rumours, about what goes on in these prison camps.’

I close my mind to what Walter has said too.

‘What sort of rumours?’ I ask, irritation escaping into my voice. She’s been listening to her father’s rhetoric, I’m sure. It’s rubbing off on her. The perfect Erna, perhaps becoming less perfect? Was it a mistake not to mention Herr Bäcker’s views to Vati?

Erna’s face clouds for a moment. Then, with a frown she says, ‘I’m not saying that those who’ve done wrong don’t deserve to be in prison… It’s just that, many of the people who were taken into “protective custody”, due to their political opinions, have been transferred to camps and the conditions are apparently very bad. I heard that, when they are due to be released, those dates get pushed back, or there is a mysterious death, or that when someone has tried to escape they’ve died for it.’

‘And who told you this?’

Erna closes her mouth and gives her head a slight shake.

‘Erna, you shouldn’t listen to such talk. You know that,’ I say, looking hard into her eyes.

‘It’s difficult to know what’s true and what’s rumour,’ she says carefully. ‘But surely, Tomas’s family deserve to know how such an accident could have happened. It sounds suspicious—’

‘What could you know about it?’ I round on her. ‘Don’t make things worse than they already are for Tomas.’

‘It’s all right, Hetty.’ Tomas frowns. ‘There are a lot of rumours flying about. You mustn’t believe everything you hear, Erna. Bastard enemies of the Reich – they just want to cause trouble.’

Erna is quiet for a moment. ‘Well, I’m sorry anyway, Tomas.’

We sit in silence again, letting the news of Tomas’s father sink in. It seems like another lifetime that Tomas and I, aged twelve, stood shoulder to shoulder in Vati’s study that day. How much has changed since then. Even little weedy Tomas is becoming a man.

Through the branches of a tall plane tree, I watch coloured light filter through the high, narrow windows of Thomaskirche, while the boys’ voices, honey sweet, crescendo to an impossible high, then abruptly stop. A hush descends over the square.

Erna and I say goodbye to Tomas and walk home through lamplit streets, hand in hand, friends again, after our disagreement over the camps earlier. Rain begins to fall, light to begin with, then with full, soaking intent. There is a rich, earthy smell in the air. Cars swish through puddles and lights reflect on the newly wet, black pavements.