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The room smelled of him – faintly of the aftershave he used sparingly, and strongly of his body odour, his leather boots and the wool uniform. His desk was neat and tidy, as he always kept it. A pile of papers to one side, a pot of black ink and blotting paper, his small clock set in a mahogany wood surround that his father had given him when he graduated university. It could be his desk at their house in Berlin, but it wasn’t his. It was borrowed, stolen. She read the top sheet of paper; a motivational piece of propaganda that would have been sent to all the kommandants about how well their armies were advancing. There was no mention of how they were failing on the Eastern front, or of Africa.

She flicked through the other pieces of paper. More of the same, and the names of troops being despatched, locations, maps. She wanted to study them, but nerves put her on edge, and this wasn’t what she was looking for. She opened the desk drawer. There they were – small slips of paper, the telegrams. She picked up the top one and started to read.

Operation Dijon.

2nd June, 21.00 hrs.

What did it mean?

The hard click of heels made her jump. She threw the paper in the drawer, closed it, and turned to see Schmidt.

“Sorry to disturb, Frau Neumann. What should I do next?”

Johanna’s heart pulsed so hard, she thought she was going to pass out. She held onto the desk and gathered her thoughts. Had he seen she was snooping? She rubbed her brow to hide her embarrassment and cleared her throat.

“I think we are safe in here. Why don’t you check the perimeter and the garden? Make sure the guttering is still intact,” she said, to get rid of him.

He clicked his heels, saluted, about-turned. The tap of his boots as he marched down the corridor and made his way down the stairs was notably lighter than Gerhard’s. Johanna stood with her hand on her chest. At the click of the front door, she left her husband’s bedroom and went to her own to ponder the message. This was information she should pass on to Fabienne.

23.

FABIENNE RETURNED FROM TOWN and parked the van outside the cottage and entered through the front door.

Something felt wrong.

She went through to the kitchen. The back door was open. She had told Nancy to stay indoors, and Nancy wouldn’t disobey her. She shouted to her cousin and when she received no response, the air seemed to leave her lungs.

She froze at the hard-sounding footsteps on the stairs, then the officer appeared in the kitchen doorway. She stared at him, his face registering. It was the lieutenant who had been at the dairy, the intense one whose dedication to duty was impeccable. “What are you doing in my house?”

He clicked his heels and bowed his head slightly. “Fraulein Brun, I am sorry to intrude. I was simply doing my duty.”

Adrenaline flowed through her like a raging river, and she tried not to show her irritation. What had he found? Where were Nancy and Esther Rosenblatt? “And how does your duty involve my house?”

He grinned. “Frau Neumann gave me orders to check outside. I take those orders seriously, which is to be expected.” He looked around the kitchen. “You have a nice cottage. If there hadn’t been a room in the house, I would have liked to have billeted here. Maybe I’ll talk to Frau Neumann about that.” He nodded as if seriously considering the option.

Fabienne inhaled deeply and clamped her jaw shut to stop herself from saying something she might regret. Antagonising him could encourage him to pursue what she hoped was an idle threat to put her in her place. At least he didn’t appear to lead with his fists or his boot, like Müller.

“It’s bigger than I imagined from the outside,” he said. “And yet it’s also what you might call cosy. It reminds me of my grandfather’s cottage. When I was a child, I used to go there at the weekends and fish with him in the river.” He sighed and shook his head, reminiscing.

“Are you finished, Herr Schmidt? Frau Neumann is expecting me, and I would like to lock the door when I leave.”

She had to find out what had happened to Nancy and Esther, but she couldn’t ask him if he had seen her cousin – that would beg the question of where she was now, and she did not need him helping to find her.

“Yes, I believe all is in order. There is a strange smell in one of the bedrooms. You might want to check it.” He clicked his heels and exited through the kitchen door.

The blood rushed to Fabienne’s head. She took a deep breath and went upstairs to search the rooms. Finding no one, she went out the back door and looked out across the fields, checking along the treeline as far as she could see. The obvious place for them to go would be the cow shed on the far boundary. She watched Schmidt until he entered the house across the yard, then started walking around the edge of the field.

Halfway to the shed, she heard her name whispered. Nancy was sitting at the base of a tree just inside the woods. Next to her, Esther leaned against the trunk, her breathing laboured. A rumbling sound came from her chest with every strained breath. She stared at Fabienne with wide pleading eyes and Nancy started to cry.

“Hey, Nancy. You did a great job.” Fabienne put her arm around her cousin’s trembling body and tugged her close, kissed her head.

“I was looking out the window for Cleo and saw him coming,” she sobbed. “And…and I woke Esther and…and I told her we had to…to run. So, we ran, Fabienne. We ran as fast as we could and…and hid.”

“It’s all my fault,” Esther said. She coughed. “I shouldn’t be here.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Blood stained her skin.

“You cannot blame yourself,” Fabienne said. She took Esther’s hand and squeezed. Later, she would check how she was feeling and tell her about the plan to get her to safety. She was still very sick, and having to run had taken everything she had in her, perhaps more.

Fabienne wiped the tears from Nancy’s cheeks. “You did the right thing. Shh, now, everything will be okay. He was just doing a check for Frau Neumann.”