‘Why?’ Dora said. She didn’t want to know or be reminded of that man, but she needed time to think. She walked back into the sitting room and Barbara followed, sitting on the sofa with her, sideways on. Her face looked different from this angle, oblique, like an Auerbach painting, Dora thought.

‘He was in the SS,’ Barbara was saying. ‘He was the commandant of Lager Sylt, on Alderney, the concentration camp.’ She paused. Dora knew she was studying her closely. ‘Sylt was a subsidiary of Neuengamme, and he’d been a captain there.’

‘But if you know who he is, what more do you want to know from me?’

Barbara paused, shifted on the sofa, tucking down her skirt as she did so. ‘I think he may be my father.’

Dora looked away, stood up. ‘Let me make some coffee.’ She walked into the kitchen. ‘How could I help you answer that?’ she said, over her shoulder, filling the kettle, hands shaking as she rummaged for the coffee in the cupboard to the left of the sink. ‘Wouldn’t your mother know?’

‘I can’t ask her now,’ Barbara said. Her mother was dead, of course. That was a tactless thing to say. Still, Dora thought, good riddance.

‘My mother said my father had been killed in the war,’ Barbara said. ‘She said he was in the Wehrmacht, a foot soldier, caught up in it all. Never a Nazi.’ She paused, and Dora saw her smile. ‘There were never any Nazis in Germany, not after the war.’

Barbara took a deep breath, got up from the sofa and followed Dora into the kitchen.

‘My father’s name was Detlef Hummel,’ she said.’ I never questioned her. It had been a whirlwind romance, my mother said. That sort of thing happened in the war. She was widowed before I was even born.’

‘But you saw photographs of him?’ Dora said. ‘Surely?’

‘She had no photos. She said they were lost in the turmoil.’

‘Does he not have family?’

‘They live behind the Iron Curtain. We couldn’t visit, couldn’t write. Still can’t. I accepted that.’

‘That all sounds very possible,’ Dora said. ‘Why do you doubt it?’

‘Woman’s intuition.’ Barbara leaned on the sink, looked out of the window. ‘You have a beautiful garden,’ she said. ‘Do you do it all yourself?’

‘Yes,’ Dora said. ‘It’s hard work.’

‘I’d love a garden. But I live in an apartment. I can only admire from afar, sow seeds in my head.’

‘You could have a window box.’

‘I do. And houseplants. But it’s not the same.’ She turned round and smiled. ‘I envy you.’

‘Why do you think this man was your father?’ Dora pointed to the photograph.