Dora caught her breath. She leaned forward and shut her eyes. List’s baby. She wouldn’t let Hoffmann have it. Or anyone. Boy or girl. Didn’t matter. Hoffmann had led List astray, made him betray her like this, and the child. She knew, when Hoffmann said mein Liebling. She’d rather the baby dead than Hoffmann take it. No. She’d deny her that. Hoffmann had plans. She’d said so. Lebensborn. What future would this child have in that? What barbarity would it suffer? She wouldn’t let it survive for some warped Nazi dream. She’d had to do enough abortions here on the women, what did it matter if another baby died? She and List would have more babies, once Hoffmann was gone, once the war was over. And if he heard the child had died, he’d come back to Dora. I’m sorry, mein Liebling, for the loss of our little one…

This was not how she had imagined it, with a face and hair and feet. This was not a mound of tissue, a bleeding swab of flesh. Tiny purple fingers. Plump little body. A strawberry mark on its neck. Give me strength. She groped for the head with her hands, placed her fingers on the tiny nostrils. Pinched hard.

Dora fainted, didn’t hear them come in. She felt the sting on her cheek, smelled Agnes, a dank blast of foetid breath grabbing her shoulders and pulling her away from the baby as Nurse Hoffmann screamed and screamed, Tot, tot. Cut the cord and scooped the thing in a towel and ran away with it.

She heard no cry from the baby. She’d snuffled the life out of it. For her, it would be as if she had never given birth. She’d bury it deep in the folds of memory, forget about it.

Chapter Eighteen: Dora

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DORA

Jersey: June 1985

Dora left the dormitory. She stood by the kitchen door, lit a match and held it to the corner of the paper, waiting until it caught. She backed out, pulling the door to behind her.

Through the courtyard, out and into the car. She sat for a moment, her hands on the steering wheel, fingering her keys before she turned on the ignition, put the car into gear. Left and left again. La Greve d’Azette. She heard the whoosh, and looked up through her rear-view mirror at the Hotel Maison Victor Hugo, the flames lapping at the lintels and curling around the roof.