Lloyd pointed at Jörg and said angrily: ‘The pervert is the one who caused this to happen.’ Mustering all his rage and contempt, he said: ‘Commissar Macke.’

Macke gave a slight nod to one of the Brownshirts. In a movement that was deceptively casual, the man reversed his rifle and hit Lloyd over the head with the butt.

Lloyd fell to the ground, holding his head in agony.

He heard Robert say: ‘Please, just let me look after Jörg.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Macke. ‘First come over here.’

Despite his pain, Lloyd opened his eyes to see what was happening.

Macke pulled Robert across the room to a rough wooden table. From his pocket he drew a document and a fountain pen. ‘Your restaurant is now worth half of what I last offered you – ten thousand marks.’

‘Anything,’ said Robert, weeping. ‘Leave me to be with Jörg.’

‘Sign here,’ said Macke. ‘Then the three of you can go home.’

Robert signed.

‘This gentleman can be a witness,’ Macke said. He gave the pen to one of the Brownshirts. He looked across the room and met Lloyd’s eye. ‘And perhaps our foolhardy English guest can be the second witness.’

Robert said: ‘Just do what he wants, Lloyd.’

Lloyd struggled to his feet, rubbed his sore head, took the pen, and signed.

Macke pocketed the contract triumphantly and went out.

Robert and Lloyd returned to Jörg.

But Jörg was dead.

(viii)

Walter and Maud came to the Lehrte Station, just north of the burned-out Reichstag, to see Ethel and Lloyd off. The station building was in the neo-Renaissance style and looked like a French palace. They were early, and they sat in a station café while they waited for the train.

Lloyd was glad to be leaving. In six weeks he had learned a lot, about the German language and about politics, but now he wanted to get home, tell people what he had seen, and warn them against the same thing happening to them.

All the same he felt strangely guilty about departing. He was going to a place where the law ruled, the press was free, and it was not a crime to be a social democrat. He was leaving the von Ulrich family to live on in a cruel dictatorship where an innocent man could be torn to pieces by dogs and no one would ever be brought to justice for the crime.

The von Ulrichs looked crushed; Walter even more than Maud. They were like people who have heard bad news, or suffered a death in the family. They seemed unable to think much about anything other than the catastrophe that had happened to them.

Lloyd had been released with profuse apologies from the German Foreign Ministry, and an explanatory statement that was abject yet at the same time mendacious, implying that he had got into a brawl through his own foolishness and then had been held prisoner by an administrative error for which the authorities were deeply sorry.