She heard him cry out, a man’s scream. Her father would have heard that scream too on his battlefields. A war cry. She shut her eyes, crouched on the landing, one hand on the baluster. She should go down, feign surprise. Innocence. They mustn’t come upstairs.

She pulled herself up.

‘Geoffrey? What’s happening?’ One step, another, slowly down the staircase. Saw the soldiers in the hallway below, rifles aimed. Only they weren’t the Wehrmacht. They were from the Geheime Feldpolizei, the secret police. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. Voice steady, though she could hear the chip of fear, nearly said, because it came first, now. Was machen Sie hier? Was wollen Sie? No German. No German.

A Feldpolizist came towards her, three steps at a time, grabbed her arm, yanked her forward so she almost tripped, marched her into the kitchen. Geoffrey’s hands had been tied, arms pulled back, head down, eyes to the floor. Another Feldpolizist stood close, Mauser at the ready. Geoffrey stayed motionless as Dora came in, didn’t look up, no eye to catch, no sign, no hope, no we’ll be all right.

Three Feldpolizisten now climbed the stairs to the attic. She heard their heavy boots overhead, kicking each door on the floor above, their shouts, Nichts! Nichts! The door to the attic stairs. The clomp of toecaps on the wooden steps, the rattle of the handle as they tried the lock, the splintering crash as they kicked it open. Silence.

And a scream, the broken gargle of the young lad. The Feldpolizisten were shouting. Raus! Schnell! The roll of their boots and the shuffle as the prisoners tripped and fell down the steps, across the landing, down the stairs, heads banging on the walls as they tried to keep their balance. She shut her eyes. Felt her arms pulled behind her, the cold metal of the handcuffs, the pinch as they clamped tight.

‘I know you,’ one of the Feldpolizisten, a sergeant, said. She gulped, don’t look him in the eye. ‘I told you I never forget a face.’

They pushed her forward. Behind her she heard Geoffrey, his breath heavy, growling. The front door was open. Dora stepped outside. A glint of sun on glass from the hillside hit her eye and she squinted. It was gone. There were two Kübelwagen. They had meant business. Shoved her towards the first. The Feldpolizisten paused and Dora watched as they manhandled the prisoners out of the door. The sergeant, the one she’d met that last time, picked up his Mauser, held it against the young lad’s temple.

Head open like a starburst.

Dora smelled the soot. Vomited. The Feldpolizist shot again and again and laughed, came towards her, pistol steaming, pushed it against her arm so she felt its burn.

‘Steigen Sie ins Auto.’