Roz picked up her suitcase and made her way to the entrance, calling back to her friends, ‘Good luck with everything, and don’t forget to write.’

She gave a last wave, then turned and followed the Haggartys out of Dovercourt to her new life in Liverpool.

Roz found the journey to Lime Street Station arduous, not least because of the multitude of changes they’d had to make, but mostly due to the company, or rather lack of it. Apart from when Callum had asked Roz if she had anything valuable she would like him to look after he hadn’t contributed to the conversation, pointedly placing his cap over his eyes as soon as he sat down, whilst Suzie seemed to keep choosing the seat farthest away from Roz. Only Lilith made an effort to talk, and even then she had steered the conversation away from the Haggartys, asking questions about Roz’s life before she left Germany. It was something Roz wasn’t keen to talk about, since she felt as though the older woman was asking for the wrong reasons. Lilith wasn’t sympathetic when Roz spoke of the Nazis and how they were treating the Jews. It seemed to Roz that the older woman was only interested in knowing what sort of house Roz and her parents had lived in, whether they owned or rented, how they had made their living and the lifestyle that they had led, which seemed irrelevant to Roz given her current situation. Lilith wasn’t keen to hear about the accident, or Roz’s opinion on what had happened to her parents, dismissing any idea of Roz being reunited with them out of hand.

‘You may as well get used to the idea of living with us for the rest of your natural,’ she said casually, removing her shoe with one hand and massaging her bunions with the other, something she did each time they changed trains. ‘I don’t know much about this lot, but the last lot were evil tyrants. If your folks aren’t in Liverpool by now, I doubt they ever will be. From what I hear, that Hitler is ruthless.

Roz stared at her in horrified disbelief. How could anyone be so cruel with their opinions? No one else she had met had expressed such a belief, even if they had thought it secretly.

‘You don’t know my dad,’ she said defensively. ‘He’s resourceful and clever, not like the Nazis – that’s why we were in Berlin in the first place, because my dad outsmarted them!’

For the first time since they had begun their journey back to Liverpool, Suzie joined the conversation with a short, mocking laugh. ‘Oh yes,’ she said derisively, ‘very smart indeed, I don’t think! If he was that smart he’d not have smashed his car up, leaving his daughter to face the Nazis on her own.’