From Paris, he contacted the British Embassy in Berlin and asked to be put through to Laure. It took several handovers and there were plenty of clicks on the line, which suggested the call was being monitored.

‘Hallo,’ Laure said eventually.

‘It’s Petr.’

‘Petr. Are you well?’

She sounded detached, as if he was written off in her mental address book. As if, perhaps, she had given up on her questions.

‘I’m coming to Berlin tomorrow for a couple of nights,’ he said. ‘Can we meet for dinner? We might be able to work something out.’

At her end, there was a sharp intake of breath. ‘Come to my flat at seven-thirty,’ she said.

In the Charlottenburg, a district in the former Western sector, trees were shaking out blossom and new foliage. An elusive fragrance drifted down from the most advanced. Holding a bouquet of eye-wateringly expensive orange roses in one hand and a bulky package in another, Petr got out of the taxi and looked up at the building where Laure lived.

What was he going to say? He had not, as yet, made up his mind. For someone who took business decisions crisply, his indecision was unusual and unsettling.

Laure’s apartment was on the third floor of a mansion block leased by the British for their people. The lobby inside was cool and his feet echoed on the stone stairs.

Outside Number 7, he smoothed down the collar of an expensive overcoat – a coat his mother would have condemned as an expression of his shameful bourgeois cravings. He, on the other hand, considered it essential to survive.

Laure opened the door. She was dressed in figure-hugging black trousers and a blue loose-fitting sweater and looked nervous.

He held out the flowers. ‘A little obvious,’ he said, ‘but I thought they had a certain something. The petals feel like soft cotton.’

‘Obvious or not, they’re lovely.’

‘I was hoping they could be tied up in some smart ribbon but there wasn’t any to be had. Only string.’

‘No ribbon necessary.’ She ushered him into the sitting area and disappeared to fetch a vase.

He looked around the room and was struck by how spartan it was, as if she did not expect to live in it. The furniture was utilitarian, the drapes at the windows were cheap ones and there was little to suggest that Laure was interested in stamping her personality on it. The only personal clutter were some objects on the table, intriguingly arranged as if they were a collection behind glass.

‘It’s like a shrine.’

Laure reappeared. ‘I like making a relationship between objects.’