‘Your sister,’ Boris said. ‘You protect her. Bad men. Sometime Russian bad man.’ He gave a crooked smile, pushing the gun towards her. ‘For you.’

Bette picked it up. It was heavy, cold to the touch, its barrel cloudy with greasy fingerprints. She held it with two hands, lifted it to her nose, sniffing sulphur and the empty smell of steel. She’d never been that close to a gun before, able to lift it, breathe it. She rubbed her finger along the barrel, down the smooth wood of the grip, studying the trigger and the springs and toggles of its mechanism. She laid it down again, eyeing it while Boris rummaged in the bag once more, fishing out two heavy bolts and a screwdriver. He took off his jacket and walked over to the service door, pulled a pencil from his pocket, lined up the bolts and marked out the holes. He made a line of screws which he held between his teeth, took them out one by one, fixing them in place.

When the bolts were secured, he pushed them to, straightened up, bowed. He threaded his arms through his jacket, fastened the newly polished buttons, buckled the belt and stood to attention. Bette wondered why he was doing this. He’d never paid so much attention to his dress. He picked up his gloves, slapped them on the back of his hand. One was dark brown, the other a lighter tan, and the cuff of his shirt was frayed. She wanted to laugh, the victor trying to be all proper when his gloves didn’t even match and his shirt was tattered.

‘I leave now,’ he said. ‘Danke, Fräulein. I will not forget you.’ He picked up his cap and put it on. ‘You marry me, yes?’

He walked out into the hall, paused by the door.

‘My friend, Vasily,’ he said. ‘Very clever man. He lieutenant now. Big man.’ The front door clicked shut behind him.

§

The steps leading to the attic were not as broken as the ones lower down, though the wooden bannisters and handrail had been ripped out over the winter and the plaster had fallen off the wall in places when the bombs had shaken the building. The stench wasn’t as bad up here as nearer the ground.

Lieselotte opened the attic door and unlocked their storage space. The light cast a dim beam along the floor. Bette let her eyes adjust. They hadn’t been here since Mutti had packed away their precious things, wrapped them in newspaper, sealed them in suitcases and hidden them under the broken chaise longue. She half expected them to have gone, the space to have been broken into, splinters and rubbish spewed across the floor. But it was as they’d left it. Dusty now from the ash that filled the city air, dull and unloved.