She was in the Hotel Maison Victor Hugo. La Greve d’Azette. The tide was in, the jasmine in bloom, ‘Lili Marleen’ was playing on a gramophone through the hallway and she was being led up the stairs.

‘Walk forward.’ A woman’s voice, in English. The sack round her head smelled of earth and mushrooms, of Miss Besson’s house. She sensed the woman coming close, heard her breathing, fiddling with the ties of the sack, forcing a cold blade between it and her neck, sawing. The sack loosened, was pulled off. Shafts of sunlight danced like a kaleidoscope on the floor. Dora breathed deep. Behind her she could feel the person tugging at her handcuffs, the sharp edges of the steel pinching Dora’s palms.

‘Gottverdammt.’

The woman went over to her desk. She was wearing a nurse’s uniform, her black lace-up shoes squeaking as she walked. She rummaged in a drawer, produced a bunch of keys, returned to Dora. Her face was round and ruddy, her body force-ripe, the kind that would go to seed fast. Her hair was dull brown, cut short.

Dora waited, heard the lock on the handcuffs grind and click, felt the pressure on her wrists give. She shook them free, winced as the blood rushed back.

She looked around the room. A doctor’s surgery. A set of scales stood next to the desk, and a measurement chart. There was a surgical bed at right angles against the wall and a set of powerful lights hanging from the ceiling. There was a medicine cabinet on another wall with a red cross painted on the door, and beneath it a large refrigerator. The contents of the room looked proficient.

‘Undress.’

‘Undress?’ Dora said.

‘Take your clothes off and go over to the bed.’

Dora unbuttoned her uniform, stepped out of it.

‘Everything,’ the nurse said. ‘Underwear.’

Dora did as she was told, stepped over to the bed, sat on it.

‘Lie down, open your legs.’

Dora had examined enough women to know what the nurse was about to do. Prodded, poked. The nurse ticked items off her list as she went.

‘To the scales.’

She was weighed and measured. The nurse brought out a small steel contraption, placed it on Dora’s head, adjusting dials, wrote down the results. Shone a light into Dora’s eyes, cut a lock of her hair and held it against a chart.

‘Is your hair dyed?’

‘No.’

Dora stood in the centre of the room. She folded her arms over her breasts, naked, vulnerable. The nurse had returned to her desk and was transferring the data into a ledger. Dora reached over for her clothes.

‘Nein,’ the nurse shouted. ‘You wait for the doctor.’