A little later, he took her to the Naafi, which had been set up in a marquee in the gardens of the hospital. They were fed corned beef, carrots and boiled potatoes, with a thin gravy. At first she looked at it as if it were poison. Heck began eating, and then so did she. In the DP camps he had seen many survivors of the concentration camps eating with their fingers, but this woman used her knife and fork, holding them delicately like a lady. She was clearly hungry, but she didn’t eat greedily.

‘You said “I know where she is”, Frau Dienstag. What did you mean?’

She stopped eating and her eyes met his for the first time.

‘Frau Dienstag? Maria?’

‘You think I am a crazy woman?’

‘No, I don’t think that, nor does the doctor. You’re sad, that’s all. You have every right to be.’

‘I think I have been crazy. I knew my baby was dead, but I didn’t want to know. It was too much for me. God asks too much of us.’

‘He’s asked too much of everyone these past years.’

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. Heck smiled at the woman, and after a while, she smiled back.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I saw her. I liked her very much.’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Your friend, Miriam. The Jewish girl. The one you were looking for. She stayed with me two nights, but it was too dangerous, so she had to be moved on.’

‘Is this true? She stayed with you? When, Frau Dienstag, when was this?’

She hesitated again, and then the words simply spilled out of her, words that had been held inside too long.

‘When her family was taken away to Grunewald Station to be loaded on to the train east. She saw them going and ran to me and I looked after her for as long as I could safely do so.’

‘You said she was moved on. Where to?’

‘She had to become a U-boat.’

‘She went underground?’

‘Yes. It was safer for her. All my friends knew the terrible fate the Nazis had in store for the Jews.’

‘Where did she go after leaving you?’

‘I wasn’t allowed to know. They told me it was safer that way.’

‘But who took her?’

‘The Red Orchestra, of course. My friends. But I think they are all dead now. All my friends are gone. They were rounded up three years ago and murdered in Plötzensee Prison. Some hanged, some guillotined, some simply strangled or shot without trial in dark cellars. Murdered by Hitler and Himmler for speaking the truth.’

‘What of your husband?’

‘We escaped the first arrests and went underground with false papers and survived until January this year, then Johann was arrested and taken before the People’s Court. Judge Freisler sentenced him to death. I am told he was guillotined.’