Not a word more, or less. Terminated. Boom. Nuremberg must be three hundred miles away at least. A good day’s travelling, straight into the fray. The trials were scheduled to start in November. He wasn’t sure he had the guts for it. But he wasn’t sure how long he could have lasted doing what he was doing. It would have taken very little to flip him over. Perhaps they saw that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

London: September 1958

‘Lieselotte?’ Her breath bubbled, had no depth, no strength. She leaned towards him, spine frail, spindly. ‘Lieselotte?’

Two query lines creased his forehead. ‘Yes.’

She studied his face, as if she could see her sister etched between his brows. She had to be sure.

‘What was she like, this Lieselotte?’

John raised his shoulders. ‘She was lovely,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t really know her well.’

‘No,’ Betty said. ‘What did she look like?’

‘Oh.’ He rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand and she heard the scritch of his whiskers. ‘It’s been a while. I need to think.’ He paused, looking at her, his upper lids half closed. ‘She was about your height, I’d guess. Maybe a little shorter. Brown hair, brown eyes. Slim…’ He paused, added, ‘I think you’d call it petite. She reminded me of a ballet dancer. And she could dance.’

‘You went dancing?’

While she’d sat by herself, alone, frightened? The resentments, the anger against her sister rose to the surface. Of course Lieselotte hadn’t wanted her clumsy, two-left-footed sister there. How dare she.

‘No,’ John said, waving his hand as if to bat away her thoughts. ‘We didn’t go dancing. That wasn’t possible. But she danced. And sang, too.’ He sighed. ‘It was a way of connecting, that was all. Why are you asking?’

‘Where were you?’ Betty said, ignoring his question. ‘Singing and dancing?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you don’t know the place, it’s meaningless.’

‘Tell me.’

‘All right. We were in a huge park in the centre of Berlin, called the Tiergarten.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know where the Tiergarten is.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He rubbed his chin again. ‘I didn’t know you knew Berlin.’

‘Du hast nie gefragt.’ You’ve never asked. She used the familiar, ‘du’. She’d have to tell him now, anyway, and it seemed right to talk in her native tongue.

He cocked his head to one side, a curious pigeon. ‘Of course, you speak German.’ His voice was low, as if he was talking to himself, and Betty wondered if she’d heard him right.

‘Why do you say that?’ she said.

‘I can’t tell you how I know,’ he said. ‘Not now, at any rate. Not here.’

She was so close to him, her face tight against his, apprehension plunging inside her like an axe in a mineshaft.

‘What do you know about me?’