‘I envy the British,’ Notovitch says. ‘Living under this enchantment – the illusion of eternal peace. Even this underground railway seems of a kind with their thousand years of history, their benign monarch whose power is constrained by an ancient parliament.’

‘You told me you hated the British.’ Vincenzo has to raise his voice over the rattle of the train.

‘As imperialists, they’re rascals – all empire-builders are. As a nation, there is a lot to admire them for. No fanaticism. Toleration of eccentrics. A fetish for fair play.’

‘I think you are romanticising.’

‘That’s why I call it an illusion. But would you rather be in Italy or Russia? Or Germany, where they are burying democracy as we speak?’

‘I consider myself lucky,’ says Vincenzo.

‘You can’t imagine how lucky. For over a year, I’ve been corresponding with a German businessman who shares my background.’

Shares my background. Vincenzo thinks: oh, a Jew. The electric lights in the carriage dim briefly as the train rounds a subterranean curve.

‘He expressed an interest in investing in my business, but with the changes there, he’s no longer considering expanding. He wants to sell up and go to America.’

‘I heard about the boycott of the Jewish shops,’ says Vincenzo.

‘That’s the least of it. Imagine this: the man I know used to have lunch most days in the same restaurant in Alexanderplatz with friends of his. Some Jews, yes, but not all of them. Now a young Brownshirt begins going there, selling copies of Der Angriff. First they think it’s funny. It’s such a brazen provocation. He comes every single day. My friend tells him to get lost. ‘Why would I want to read this insulting propaganda?’ Still the young man comes. They ask the proprietor to kick him out. Two days after the election, a whole gang of them turn up, carrying a list of every Jew in the place. They form a guard by the door, read off the list of names, and beat each man unconscious. For the crime of being Jewish. This happened two weeks ago. My advice, Mr Dittami? If you want to sleep soundly, don’t buy the wireless. Buy a gramophone instead.’

Vincenzo is out at Warren Street. He turns as the doors close. Notovitch has taken a newspaper from the pocket of his overcoat. Vincenzo sees the homburg silhouetted against the newsprint, gathering pace as the carriage rattles into the darkness.

‘I told Skobelev as much as I knew.’

The old general is out of his depth. He’s been sent to Paris to satisfy someone’s well-grounded concern that Rachkovsky is not to be trusted. But he’s too old and drink-sodden, and not clever enough to catch Rachkovsky out. And the sad thing is that somewhere he knows it.

Rachkovsky responds to his requests for information with excessive helpfulness. He sends round so many crateloads of documents that Skobelev is inundated. The general has to stack them in his hotel room, and still they keep coming, piling up into walls, within which Skobelev paces, like a rat in a maze of paperwork.