“And what do we have here?” he asked.

I handed him my letter and told him about my grandmother and my sister.

“Take the child away,” he said brusquely. I didn’t understand German, but I got the gist, especially from Hanni’s horrified intake of breath. Hands snatched her from me.

“No, please,” I begged. “She is so afraid without me.”

“No, Julietta!” she begged as she was taken from the room.

“You must think me very stupid, Frä ulein,” he said. “I can smell a Jew a mile away. And you, I am sure, are not Jewish. Lucky for you. But my Italian is not so good. Shall we revert to a more familiar language? I happen to speak English quite well.”

I suppose my face must have registered my shock because he laughed. “Oh yes. We know all about you, dear English lady. Your housekeeper told us you had left. We searched your dwelling, and we found the radio. A rather primitive device no longer of any use, of course, but a valiant attempt. So please take a seat. We have a few questions we want to ask you.”

I was glad he said that because my legs wouldn’t have held me up much longer.

“So you can make it easy for yourself or very hard. Who gave you the radio?”

That was easy. He was long gone. “When the English had to leave Venice, the former consul came and asked me if I would monitor the shipping for them. In those days it was Italian vessels. I agreed. A man came and installed the radio. He gave me instructions on how to send messages and how to read codes. I never knew his name. I never saw anyone after that. Codebooks were dropped off at my door. But none for a long while now. I presume this small outpost is of no use to anyone.”

“Or your contact has been captured by us and the chain of communication has been broken.”

I decided to appeal to him as a human being. “You speak very good English,” I said.

“Yes, I studied for one year at Cambridge, before the war,” he said.

“What did you study?”

“Philosophy.” He laughed. “The fools never realized I was sent by the German government. You British were so hopelessly unprepared.”

“Nevertheless we seem to be winning at last,” I couldn’t help but saying.

His expression changed. “You realize I could have you shot right now as a spy.” He paused, savouring those words. “But as it happens, the spying is a noble cause, not your most serious offence. You were aiding a Jew to escape, were you not? Your housekeeper alerted us to the fact that you had a Jew in the house. Like most good Christians, she has a profound distrust of Jews.”

“What will happen to her?” I cried. “She’s only a child. An innocent child.”