What rubbish that was, Carla thought. The Church was up to its neck in politics. But she let it pass. ‘My maid’s son did not have an appendix,’ she went on. ‘He had had it removed two years earlier.’

‘Please,’ said Peter. ‘What does this prove?’

Carla felt discouraged. Peter was obviously biased against them.

Heinrich said: ‘Wait, Peter. You haven’t heard it all. Ilse here worked at the hospital in Akelberg.’

Peter looked at her expectantly.

‘I was raised Catholic, Father,’ Ilse said.

Carla had not known that.

‘I’m not a good Catholic,’ Ilse went on.

‘God is good, not us, my daughter,’ said Peter piously.

Ilse said: ‘But I knew that what I was doing was a sin. Yet I did it, because they told me to, and I was frightened.’ She began to cry.

‘What did you do?’

‘I killed people. Oh, Father, will God forgive me?’

The priest stared at the young nurse. He could not dismiss this as propaganda: he was looking at a soul in torment. He went pale.

The others were silent. Carla held her breath.

Ilse said: ‘The handicapped people are brought to the hospital in grey buses. They don’t have special treatment. We give them an injection, and they die. Then we cremate them.’ She looked up at Peter. ‘Will I ever be forgiven for what I have done?’

He opened his mouth to speak. His words caught in his throat, and he coughed. At last he said quietly: ‘How many?’

‘Usually four. Buses, I mean. There are about twenty-five patients in a bus.’

‘A hundred people?’

‘Yes. Every week.’

Peter’s proud composure had vanished. His face was pale grey, and his mouth hung open. ‘A hundred handicapped people a week?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘What sort of handicap?’

‘All sorts, mental and physical. Some senile old people, some deformed babies, men and women, paralysed or retarded or just helpless.’

He had to keep repeating it. ‘And the staff of the hospital kill them all?’

Ilse sobbed. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I knew it was wrong.’

Carla watched Peter. His supercilious air had gone. It was a remarkable transformation. After years of hearing the prosperous Catholics of this sylvan suburb confess their little sins, he had suddenly been confronted with raw evil. And he was shocked to his core.

But what would he do?

Peter stood up. He took Ilse by the hands and raised her from her seat. ‘Come back to the church,’ he said. ‘Confess to your priest. God will forgive you. This much I know.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

He released her hands and looked at Heinrich. ‘It may not be so simple for the rest of us,’ he said.

Then he turned his back on them and knelt to pray again.

Carla looked at Heinrich, who shrugged. They got up and left the little room, Carla with her arm around the weeping Ilse.

Carla said: ‘We’ll stay for the service. Perhaps he’ll speak to us again afterwards.’

The four of them walked into the nave of the church. Ilse stopped crying and became calmer. Frieda held Heinrich’s arm. They took seats among the gathering congregation, prosperous men and plump women and restless children in their best clothes. People such as these would never kill the handicapped, Carla thought. Yet their government did, on their behalf. How had this happened?