She moves out of the lift and onto the viewing platform. I steel myself and follow. From here, the view is even better. The wide Elbe river stretching to left and right, with Bad Schandau itself far below, and – on the opposite bank – the railway we arrived on. Father said if we’d have stayed on the train, we’d have ended up in Czechoslovakia within a few miles.

‘Beautiful, yes?’ she says. She gathers me close to her and then points out a table-top peak in the distance. ‘The Lilienstein. It is the sign of this area – Saxon Switzerland.’

‘But we’re not in Switzerland, are we?’

‘Of course not, silly. It’s just the area’s nickname because it’s a bit like the Alps.’

‘Well, it’s certainly a great view.’ I don’t feel so nervous about the height standing up here on the static platform – it was just the moving lift giving me trouble. But my heart is still beating fast from being so close to Lotti.

‘Do you have a girlfriend, Arnold?’

What sort of question is that? I’m only twelve. The Germans seem so forward. Whatever they’re thinking, they just say it. I can feel myself blushing and getting hot.

‘N-n-no. N-n-not yet. Mother and Father say I’m not old enough. There’s one girl at home I like.’ It’s my Friend Cliff’s older sister. Of course, she doesn’t know I like her. Not unless the stammer and red face which always erupt whenever I’m near her are a giveaway. A bit like now with Lotti. Although until now, I hadn’t really thought of Lotti like that. She isn’t beautiful, more . . . I don’t know how to put it, really. More earthy. She seems very knowing.

She squeezes my hand. ‘Would you like to be my boyfriend, then?’

This seems stupidly fast. I don’t really know the girl, have spent about fifteen minutes maximum with her, and now she’s asking me to be her boyfriend. But although she isn’t beautiful, there is something in her eyes, her blonde hair, her emerging shape beneath her thin summer jumper, that’s well, sexy I suppose the word is. Suddenly, to my shame, I feel my body reacting down below as she strokes my hand with her fingers.

‘Yes,’ I find myself saying, not really understanding why. ‘Yes, I would.’

No sooner are the words out of my mouth, than she leans in for a kiss.

Chapter 7

7

Dresden

February 1982

On exiting the Am Zwinger, Müller found a welcoming party for her, Schmidt and Tilsner. She couldn’t be sure, but the man looked very similar to one of those she’d taken to be agents overlooking the crime scene.