Lloyd had been shaken by this morning’s fracas. Politics was part of everyday life for him: his mother had been a Member of Parliament, his father was a local councillor in London, and he himself was London Chairman of the Labour League of Youth. But it had always been a matter of debating and voting – until today. He had never before seen an office trashed by uniformed thugs while the police looked on smiling. It was politics with the gloves off, and it had shocked him.

‘Could this happen in London, Millie?’ he wrote. His first instinct was to think that it could not. But Hitler had admirers among British industrialists and newspaper proprietors. Only a few months ago the rogue MP Sir Oswald Mosley had started the British Union of Fascists. Like the Nazis, they had to strut up and down in military-style uniforms. What next?

He finished his letter and folded it, then caught the S-train back into the city centre. He and his mother were going to meet Walter and Maud von Ulrich for dinner. Lloyd had been hearing about Maud all his life. She and his mother were unlikely friends: Ethel had started her working life as a maid in a grand house owned by Maud’s family. Later they had been suffragettes together, campaigning for votes for women. During the war they had produced a feminist newspaper, The Soldier’s Wife. Then they had quarrelled over political tactics and become estranged.

Lloyd could remember vividly the von Ulrich family’s trip to London in 1925. He had been ten, old enough to feel embarrassed that he spoke no German while Erik and Carla, aged five and three, were bilingual. That was when Ethel and Maud had patched up their quarrel.

He made his way to the restaurant, Bistro Robert. The interior was art deco, with unforgivingly rectangular chairs and tables, and elaborate iron lampstands with coloured glass shades; but he liked the starched white napkins standing to attention beside the plates.

The other three were already there. The women were striking, he realized as he approached the table: both poised, well dressed, attractive and confident. They were getting admiring glances from other diners. He wondered how much of his mother’s modish dress sense had been picked up from her aristocratic friend.

When they had ordered, Ethel explained her trip. ‘I lost my parliamentary seat in 1931,’ she said. ‘I hope to win it back at the next election, but meanwhile I have to make a living. Fortunately, Maud, you taught me to be a journalist.’

‘I didn’t teach you much,’ Maud said. ‘You had a natural talent.’

‘I’m writing a series of articles about the Nazis for the News Chronicle, and I have a contract to write a book for a publisher called Victor Gollancz. I brought Lloyd as my interpreter – he’s studying French and German.’

Lloyd observed her proud smile and felt he did not deserve it. ‘My translation skills have not been much tested,’ he said. ‘So far, we’ve mostly met people like you, who speak perfect English.’