But this silence in their flat could not go on forever. Even in her anger, Marianne loved her friend. Benita needed protection. She was easy prey—so fragile and romantic and readily swayed. For all Marianne knew, Muller might harbor a false sense of her fortune and believe her to be rich. After all, when he’d met her, she’d lived in a castle. And who knew what his debts were, or his prospects?

It was easy to find the shop where Herr Muller worked. There was only one coffin maker in Momsen. It sat on the first floor of a hulking, coal-smoke-stained building, still pocked with bullet holes. In the final days of the war, the local Hitler Youth and Home Guard had put up a fierce, irrational fight, losing countless lives, destroying buildings and bridges. And the mad captain in charge of this motley group was now a town councilman. Momsen was as bad as Ehrenheim, in Marianne’s view.

To the left of the shop, Marianne found a doorway with a list of names. MULLER, one read. So he lived here, too. Marianne could not imagine Benita calling this home. She was a woman who lived for creature comforts and pretty dresses. It bolstered Marianne’s sense of rightness to think that she was sparing her friend from such a fate.

A little girl opened the door when Marianne knocked: pale, dark haired, and unusually slim with wide, wary eyes.

“Can I help you?” the girl asked.

“Is this the shop of Franz Muller?” Marianne asked.

The girl nodded. She looked about Martin’s age. “Would you like to come in?” she asked. “Papa!” she called into the shop.

Marianne was taken aback. So the man had a daughter. It rendered him less monstrous.

The door opened into a gloomy alcove and from somewhere inside, she heard the grating of a saw, which at this moment knocked off. “Clotilde?” came a man’s voice, and heavy footfalls across the floor.

And then Franz Muller stood at the entrance. In the flesh, his face looked dismayingly ordinary, free of the darkness Marianne had attached to it in her mind’s eye.

“You can invite our visitor in—” he began, and then broke off, recognizing Marianne.

“Frau von Lingenfels,” he said in surprise. “Come in.” He held open the door. “Can I offer you something—we don’t have much here—but a cup of tea? Some biscuits?”

“That’s all right,” Marianne said. “Just a moment of your time.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Clotilde, will you leave us? You can go upstairs and see if Grosspapa needs help.”

The girl’s dark eyes passed from her father to Marianne with curiosity. Then she grabbed her coat off a hook. “When shall I come back?”

“I will come get you,” Franz said. “Go on—but say good-bye to Frau von Lingenfels first.”

“Good-bye,” the girl said. “Please come again.”

It seemed such a curious thing to say—come again to a coffin shop? Did they have many repeat visitors? Or had she mistaken Marianne for a friend? The girl’s innocence was disarming. Marianne watched as her narrow back disappeared.