By his reckoning, she would now be thirty or so and that seemed from his vantage point at the other end of the room to be about right. Her hair was the same chestnut flecked with auburn but cut differently and she was thinner. It was her skin, luminous and almost transparent, which give him the final clue. That had not changed.

Engrossed in conversation with an old ex-Stasi bully, she had not noticed him and, light-headed and alarmingly? stupidly? elated, he allowed himself a few extra seconds to gaze on her.

The hand holding his glass felt unsteady and, to give himself a breathing space, he turned away.

Mistake: one of the British diplomats pounced. By now, Petr’s English was fluent and, tiresome though it was, he engaged in the social fray.

‘It must be fascinating to be here to witness the new Germany taking shape.’

Either the diplomat was an unhappy man or he did not understand his profession. There was a marked hesitation before he replied: ‘yes and no’.

Wrong man and wrong job, thought Petr, a predicament for which he had little sympathy.

He could not prevent himself looking past the diplomat’s shoulder to where Laure was. ‘Adjustment is always the challenge,’ he offered.

‘A shambles if you want my opinion,’ was the reply.

‘Isn’t “shambles” a little strong?’ Petr said. ‘The East Germans are being practical. Trade and manufacture stand a better chance of making things work than governments.’

The diplomat stared down at his glass. ‘Barking, half of them. The party die-hards suffer from Mauer im Kopf. You know… the Wall in the Head.’

Detaching himself from the disaffected diplomat, he began a slow, but inevitable, progress towards Laure, the magnetic pole to which he was drawn.

A stocky man in a dark, formal suit with swept-back fair hair touched her on the elbow and drew her aside. Public school? Oxbridge? Almost certainly doctrinaire about the freedoms enjoyed by the West? They conferred in low voices. Glancing up, she caught sight of Petr and, for a fraction of a second, her eyes widened.

What would she see? Obviously, not the thirty-six-year-old husband and father of two young children of a decade ago. He was aware that middle age was slackening his features, bulking his waistline and greying his hair at the temples. Anxiety and the tricky business of keeping on top of political changes must also have taken a toll.

The slight stiffening of Laure’s shoulders at his approach told him that she had been waiting. She broke off her conversation. ‘Petr. A long time.’ She swung into action. ‘David, this Petr Kobes who used to be my boss in Prague. Petr, this David Brotton who is currently my boss at the British Embassy.’ Her lips twitched. ‘Bosses, meet each other.’