The woman reminded Dora of someone, but she couldn’t think who. She was slim, well-dressed, her face carried a mature beauty, like the models in Woman’s Own, older women for the most part, with worn-in faces. Perhaps that’s where she’d seen her. She might be a model. Her skin was fair, but her hair dark. Sometimes Scottish people had complexions like that, or Irish. She’d heard once it was because of the Spanish. It was said they’d peopled Hibernia in the early days, before proper history, but she didn’t know how true that was.

‘Is it not convenient?’

‘No,’ Dora said. That was a fib, but she didn’t want to give the woman encouragement. Perhaps she had been one of her tenants? Rented out the basement to her? Or a student? She’d had so many pass through her hands, it was difficult to remember them all. It wasn’t as if she had taught them. She’d see them once at the start of term pleading with her to find them accommodation, as if she could conjure rooms out of nowhere.

‘When would be a good time?’

Dora wanted to say, Never. ‘What’s this about?’ she said instead.

‘I just have a few questions,’ the woman said.

Barbara Hummel. The name meant nothing. Besides, a tenant or a student wouldn’t have had the wartime connection. It could still be a hoax. A con-woman.

‘They are very important to me.’

‘What about?’

‘Please,’ Barbara said. Her face puckered and Dora thought she was about to cry. She didn’t have time to cope with that. Dora was tempted to say, Pull yourself together.

‘It’s difficult to explain, in a few words, on the doorstep. When would be a more convenient time?’

Her English was very good, but Dora could spot a German accent a mile away. She could even tell which part of Germany the speaker came from. This woman came from the north. Bremen or Hamburg. Hannover, perhaps. Wouldn’t be Rostock or Lübeck, because that was in the Communist East, and they had a different accent anyway, as different as a Scouser from a Geordie.

‘I don’t know this Mr O’Cleary,’ Dora said. ‘If that’s what you think. He must have the wrong person. Dora Simon is a common name.’

‘You were in Jersey,’ Barbara said. She smiled, a touch of irony drifting about her lips, as if she knew more than she was letting on. ‘I doubt there would be two Dora Simons there at the same time.’

‘You are very sure of yourself, young woman,’ Dora said. She could hear her voice, crisp and bitter. Forbidding.