‘Gone.’ Agnes clicked her fingers as she walked past Dora at the morning Appell. ‘Like that. Seems you failed her with your dead baby. Tot. One word–’ she ran her finger across her throat. ‘That’s all it takes. But you,’ she pointed at Dora, laughed at her with black, crooked teeth, ‘are sitting pretty. Aren’t you the lucky one?’

Agnes would betray Dora as soon as look at her, but this could only mean that List had come true on his promise. She could feel her heart quicken and pulse, hard with hope.

‘He’s one for the ladies, so I hear.’ Agnes stopped, faced Dora.

‘Who?’ A spasm tightened in Dora’s stomach.

‘Baron Aufsess,’ Agnes said. ‘Their number two. They say he’s taking over. Knackfuss has got the chop. Seems Aufsess has taken a personal interest in unser kleines arisches Mädchen.’ She chewed at a hair in her mouth, spitting it out on her tongue.

A ball of bile clutched Dora’s throat and she began to retch, felt Agnes’s hand clamp over her arm as she dragged her free of the line.

‘List has gone too,’ Agnes said. ‘So no more special favours.’

‘Oh?’ Dora feigned indifference, but her tone was too eager. ‘Where did he go?’

‘Hah,’ Agnes laughed, nodded. I know your secret. ‘Back to Germany. To answer questions. Seems he let a whole lot of Jews escape last year.’

Dora shivered. Did that mean her? Had he known all along? Had protected her? Was facing a court martial because of her?

‘Your day orders,’ Agnes went on, ‘are to stay in the Revier, Kapo. But at night, Cinderella, you dance.’

‘Stop,’ Dora said. She was breathless, faint. Her knees began to buckle. He had spared her the brothel for a time, but he could safeguard her no longer. Dora could see the bedroom again with its thick flock wallpaper and velvet drapes, feel the thrusts of the men, the weight of their bodies. She could hear the bray of the bedsprings and the cries as they disgorged themselves in her. She was nothing to them but loin and skirt, flank and belly.

‘You need to get yourself another protector. Come.’ Agnes put her arm round Dora, an unexpected support. Led her into the kitchen, carried her bowl and cup into the dormitory, sat her down on a bunk.

‘Who is the nurse in the Revier?’ Dora said. ‘If Hoffmann’s gone?’

‘Seems you’re in charge.’

Dora looked at Agnes, but her face showed nothing.

‘Let them find their own nurses,’ Dora said. ‘I won’t be party to it.’

They could do what they liked with her. Send her to the laundry by day like the other women, or have her mending uniforms, webbing. She wasn’t going to be their nurse, sorting out their poxy soldiers.