‘Sorry,’ he said in his accented German. He pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table. He hadn’t visited since the bicycle episode, the night Mutti died, and that was nearly four weeks ago.

‘Perhaps he’s gone for good,’ Lieselotte had said.

‘Will you get another wolf?’ Bette said.

Lieselotte had shrugged. ‘If necessary,’ she said, adding, ‘It wasn’t easy.’

‘What did you have to do?’ Bette said.

Lieselotte had ground her teeth, nostrils flaring. ‘What do you think? Let him rape me. Again and again and again.’

She gave a queer smile. ‘I told him at the beginning he was the only one, made him feel important, told him to keep me for himself.’ She’d wiped her nose with the back of her finger. ‘Deep down, he’s a halfway decent man, Bette. He kept us alive.’

Bette hadn’t told Lieselotte that Vasily knew, that she lived in fear of him returning. There was too much else to worry about, too much sadness to bear. Grief hung over them like a vapour and they breathed it in with every lungful.

Boris carried a rucksack. He put it on the kitchen table and lifted out pickled fish and bacon, sausages, butter, cheese, a freshly baked loaf. They’d had little to eat since Mutti had died, rye bread, groats, rotten potatoes, a broth that Lieselotte had made from nettles and dandelions and a rib from a dead horse they’d found, its meat long since scavenged. Lieselotte had had to give the man at Friedrichshain Park the rest of Boris’s sausage and herring for space in the communal grave, before they could lower Mutti into it. They’d wrapped her body in blackout paper.

Bette tore at the bread, broke off some cheese, gave it to Lieselotte, did the same for herself. She didn’t care where it came from. Boris sat, nodding, waiting. Then he beckoned Bette over and put his arm round her shoulder.

‘Man of house,’ he said, pulling her towards him. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, that Vasily had told him. He delved into the bag again, took out a revolver and placed it in her hand. The gun was cold and heavy and Bette shrank away, shaking her head. She wanted nothing to do with it.

Lieselotte stepped forward. ‘He’s too young,’ she said, taking the pistol from her and placing it on the table.

Boris shrugged. ‘Bad men,’ he said, ignoring Lieselotte, nodding at Bette, holding his arm out straight and pointing two fingers. He smiled, added, ‘Luger. German gun. Gut, ja?’

All weapons had to be handed in, that’s what the notices said. Boris was giving them one. Did that make it all right? Or did he want them caught? Everyone in the building would be punished if it was found, not just Bette.