But he has his doubts. Not even here, here in the heart of fascism, is he convinced that the creed is being followed closely enough. The deal with Stalin has rattled him—why did the Führer do that, make a pact with the Bolsheviks? Others tell him that it is part of a bigger plan, that the Führer knows what he is doing, that they will just have to wait and see. He wonders about that, but in the meantime he is going to work for the wider cause, not least because there isnowhere else to work. He knows on which side his bread is buttered.

The second hand sweeps steadily up to the top of the clock, and when it reaches it, a red light comes on above.

“Good evening,” he begins in a slow, low voice, not in the haranguing tones he once used at public meetings. “Tonight I’d like to talk to you about the Jews. As many of you know, this war was started by the Jews, and I think it only right that we should avail ourselves of as much information as possible about this pernicious race of people, exposing the means by which they hope to gain world power.

“Many of you have written to me asking why it is that I dislike the Jews so much. Well, I would have thought that would have been self-evident, but in listing my reasons for my dislike of them, I will also expose their underhanded practices, their devious ways. The Jew has a number of reproachable tendencies, tendencies which I will now list in brief, and then expand upon later.

“For a start, the Jew has an incapacity to avoid forming a state within a state. Do not let the Jews tell you that they have been forced into their stinking ghettos, for it is they who chose to live like that, huddled together in a mass, creating their own customs and laws, sitting like a parasite on the skin of their host society.”

He catches the eye of Manfred, his producer, through the glass partition. Manfred smiles, and gives him a thumbs-up. This is going well, he thinks, this will earn him a place in history. When he goes back, back to an England free of Jews, an England cast out of the twilight and back into the bright rays of hope, he will be a hero, one of its saviors. No traitor am I, he thinks, merely just ahead of the game, ahead of time, always ahead of time.

NOVEMBER 1962

Her flat was crammed with papers, books, letters and files. Friends would joke about it, telling Amy that she should just throw the whole lot away, forget about it, get on with her life. It was history, they said, let it go.