That was where they had taken Waltraud, Greta said, right there.

‘They rammed her mouth with the barrel of a gun to shut her up.’

Bette was holding the handle on the front door so it didn’t slam shut, but the door opened inwards, pulling Bette with it.

‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ her mother said. ‘Come inside now. And Greta,’ she added, forcing a smile. ‘You go home too.’ She pushed Bette indoors and stepped out onto the landing, closing the door behind her. Bette heard her whisper, ‘How is Waltraud? And your mother?’ She didn’t hear Greta’s reply.

Mutti backed into the hall, shutting the front door and locking it. She took Bette’s hand and led her into the sitting room. Lieselotte was staring out of the window. Three of its panes were missing and the fourth was cracked.

‘Black and burnt,’ she said. ‘Everything black. And burnt. It’s like a funeral pyre.’

Bette didn’t know why Lieselotte was saying that now, as if she was seeing it for the first time. They were used to it, scorched air thick as dust, smouldering homes, the charred bones of cars. It never ended, the black and the burnt, the ruins and the remains, cratered roads, a flash of curtain like a flap of skin. A piano hanging out of a shattered room, the wind plucking the strings so it played a strange, ghostly melody. They could taste death, grit in their teeth and up their nostrils. There were graveyards everywhere now with makeshift crosses. They could hear the fighting in Wilhelmstrasse or Prenzlauer Berg, explosions that shook the core of the city. They’ve flooded the U-Bahn. Rumours swirled like spinning tops. They’re at the Reichstag. No, the Landwehr canal. Nobody believed it, anyway.

‘Come away. You’ll be seen.’

‘I’d fight like hell if it were me.’

Mutti glanced at Bette, then Lieselotte, putting a finger to her lip, shaking her head, not in front of the child.

‘I’m not a baby,’ Bette said. ‘I’m twelve years old and I know what’s going on. What they did to Waltraud. And Frau Müller before that. You can talk about it in front of me.’

‘Who told you?’ Mutti was shouting.

‘Greta,’ Bette said. ‘But I have eyes. And ears.’ She knew she was being cheeky but her mother just said, ‘Well, then,’ and walked over to Lieselotte and placed her mouth across Lieselotte’s ear. ‘If you fight, you make it worse.’ She spoke softly, but Bette heard.

‘What am I supposed to do?’ Lieselotte turned to face her mother, not bothering to lower her voice. ‘Lie back and do nothing?’

‘Yes,’ her mother said. ‘You don’t want to be hurt.’ She paused, her words quiet and gentle. ‘Or worse.’

Lieselotte gave a strange twisted smile, turned her back to her mother, looked out of the window again.