‘Yes, a daughter. She’s twenty-one now.’

‘Ah, they grow up so fast. I bet you can scarcely fathom where your little girl went.’

Before he could explain that he hadn’t been part of Phyllis’s childhood, the butler returned with a bowl of steaming soup and some bread. Archie stood to take the tray while the actress fussed round him, plumping the cushions on the sofa; her attentions were so unexpected that he began to think he must be running a fever which threatened his grip on reality. When she was satisfied that he was comfortable and had sat down next to him, he noticed that the lighting in the room had been carefully arranged to emphasise her beauty as it was seen on the screen – the hollow cheeks, the full lips and thinly pencilled eyebrows. ‘It was so good of you to offer to be my escort for Christmas.’

Archie couldn’t help but smile. ‘It really doesn’t feel like a favour,’ he said, ‘but I can’t imagine your visitors would be very pleased by your plans for the holiday? Donating so generously to a charity for Jewish refugees is a courageous thing to do when the Gestapo are standing outside your door.’

‘By courageous you mean foolhardy.’

‘In my experience, they’re often hard to tell apart.’

‘They will not criticise me while they still think they have a chance of persuading me to return. Anyway, they are always keen to assure me that there is no anti-Semitism in Germany.’ 45

‘What happened last month makes that a very hard position to maintain.’

‘You would think so, wouldn’t you, and yet Hitler made a speech the following day without mentioning it once.’

Her voice was understandably bitter. The events were still recent, but Archie knew that he would never forget the shocking newspaper accounts of the way in which synagogues and Jewish businesses throughout Nazi Germany had been ransacked and destroyed in the course of a single night, dubbed ‘Kristallnacht’ after the shards of broken glass that littered the streets. Nearly a hundred Jews had been murdered and thousands more taken away, sparking outrage around the world. ‘It must sadden you to know what’s happening in your country,’ he said.

The actress shrugged, deflecting the observation, and Archie realised what an understatement it had been. ‘Helping people is the decent thing to do, and it is the time of year for goodwill. I love Christmas, don’t you? We always start it early because Maria’s birthday is in December. She’s just fourteen. What do you think of our tree? We decorated it together when she was here with me last week. We went shopping. There’s nowhere quite like London for shopping. Maria had such a happy time. Is the soup good?’

Despite his earlier protestations, a hot meal was just what Archie needed and he nodded. ‘Yes, very good. You’re not taking Maria to Cornwall with you?’ he asked, intrigued by this woman who could stand up to the Nazis one minute, then fuss like a mother hen around a policeman she had only just met.