After a while he said: ‘Your tea will be cold.’

She laughed. ‘I love you, Woody.’

‘Do you really?’

‘I hope you’re not spooked by me saying that.’

‘No.’ He smiled. ‘It makes me very happy.’

‘I know girls aren’t supposed to come right out with it, just like that. But I can’t pretend to dither. Once I make up my mind, that’s it.’

‘Yes,’ said Woody. ‘I’d noticed that.’

(v)

Greg Peshkov was living in his father’s permanent apartment at the Ritz-Carlton. Lev came and went, stopping off for a few days between Buffalo and Los Angeles. At present Greg had the place to himself – except that the congressman’s curvy daughter, Rita Lawrence, had stayed overnight, and now looked adorably tousled in a man’s red silk dressing gown.

A waiter brought them breakfast, the newspapers, and a message envelope.

The joint statement by Roosevelt and Churchill had caused more of a stir than Greg had expected. It was still the main news more than a week later. The press called it the Atlantic Charter. It had seemed, to Greg, to be all cautious phrases and vague commitments, but the world saw it otherwise. It was hailed as a trumpet blast for freedom, democracy and world trade. Hitler was reported to be furious, saying it amounted to a declaration of war by the United States against Germany.

Countries that had not been at the conference nevertheless wanted to sign the charter, and Bexforth Ross had suggested the signatories should be called the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the Germans were overrunning the Soviet Union. In the north they were closing in on Leningrad. In the south the retreating Russians had blown up the Dnieper Dam, the biggest hydro-electric power complex in the world and their pride and joy, in order to deny its power to the conquering Germans – a heartbreaking sacrifice. ‘The Red Army has slowed the invasion a bit,’ Greg said to Rita, reading from the Washington Post. ‘But the Germans are still advancing five miles a day. And they claim to have killed three and a half million Soviet soldiers. Is it possible?’

‘Do you have any relatives in Russia?’

‘As a matter of fact, I do. My father told me, one time when he was a little drunk, that he left a pregnant girl behind.’

Rita made a disapproving face.

‘That’s him, I’m afraid,’ Greg said. ‘He’s a great man, and great men don’t obey the rules.’

She said nothing, but he could read her expression. She disagreed with his view, but was not willing to quarrel with him about it.

‘Anyway, I have a Russian half-brother, illegitimate like me,’ Greg went on. ‘His name is Vladimir, but I don’t know anything else about him. He may be dead by now. He’s the right age to fight. He’s probably one of those three and a half million.’ He turned the page.

When he had finished the paper, he read the message the waiter had brought.

It was from Jacky Jakes. It gave a phone number and just said: Not between 1 and 3.