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Noemi shuffled her feet to mask the sound of Pascal moving forward.

One more step and he would be visible even to Viktor’s blurred eyes.

And she had no idea how much longer he would be able to hold himself together.

But she was sure Viktor hadn’t yet told the whole story, and she needed him to finish that.

‘Whether that’s true or not, there’s still one thing I don’t understand. Weren’t you worried that her downfall would instantly lead to yours? A timid wife is one thing, but a wife who helps Jews escape? Surely you took a risk in turning her in?’

Viktor read an admiration that wasn’t there into her question. He struck his conqueror’s pose again.

‘It wasn’t a risk because I didn’t let it be.

Carina took all the blame for smuggling you out; I beat that promise into her.

And I played the horrified husband perfectly, which was easier to do given that I wasn’t here.

I even offered to throw myself on my sword.

Nobody wanted to see that scandal play out – a loyal Nazi’s wife helping a Jew escape justice?

It broke every rule and was best hushed up, and besides – luckily for everyone – Carina very conveniently died and the problem disappeared. ’

It was the little smile on conveniently that gave him away.

That carried prison guards on his payroll inside it, and the hint of an empty staircase or one too many interrogations or freezing-cold nights.

That spoke far more clearly about the depths of his cruelty than words ever could.

This time Noemi didn’t try to mask anything.

She stepped aside and let Pascal come, with all his fury roaring.

‘You ruined her life and you killed her. And there’s not one speck of remorse in you. How did I never see you for the brute you really are? How did I let her go on living with you?’

The boy who’d worshipped his father was gone.

The man roaring past her, screaming out his pain, was haunted and broken, and fuelled by rage.

Noemi had to force herself not to throw herself after him, but – as much as she would mourn Carina herself – this agony was his, and the confrontation was no longer hers to control.

And it wasn’t Viktor’s either. Pascal’s sudden appearance caught him off guard.

He stepped back, slipped, caught himself before he fell, but the gun he’d instinctively grabbed fell from his hand as he stumbled.

Pascal caught it as it clattered to the ground and waved it in Viktor’s face.

‘What was the plan tonight? You tricked Noemi into coming here – that much is obvious. Were you going to kill her too and complete the family set?’

Viktor had curled into a boxer’s crouch, but his fists loosened a little despite the gun pointed at him, as if he’d found a better way out than a fight.

‘I hadn’t decided that.’ He blustered on as Pascal called him a liar.

‘I tricked her here, yes, but I’d have let her go as long as she promised never to come back.

’ He glanced over at Noemi as if that lie might make her grateful to him.

‘There’s nothing left for her – she knows that.

The Americans aren’t interested in her allegations, and nobody wants her in the town raking up the past. I wanted to make her realise that, with her gone, life could get back to normal for the rest of us, which is what we all need.

She’s not a fool; I thought she’d see sense and clear off. ’

‘ Normal ?’ Pascal threw the word out like a punch and couldn’t stop swinging.

‘Let’s leave to one side for a moment the fact that I don’t believe you.

That I believe you would have shot her without a second thought once you’d finished showing off just how evil you are.

Why don’t you explain to me instead how in God’s name you think life will ever be normal again?

Don’t you get what we’ve done? We pledged ourselves to a madman.

We helped him tear through Europe spitting out hate.

We turned our backs on anyone without his godforsaken idea of “pure blood” and pursued them to their deaths.

What part of that leads any of us back to normal ?

And what part of you confessing to killing my mother, your wife, leads me and you back there? ’

Viktor’s body had coiled again, but Noemi wasn’t sure Pascal had noticed.

He raised his gun towards his father and didn’t flicker when Noemi – who could see the murderous rage flashing in Viktor’s eyes and was convinced it would take at least two bullets to stop him – reached for hers too.

But although they’d moved physically in the same way and at the same time, they’d never fought together before, and she hadn’t read his mind.

Pascal didn’t press the trigger, and he told Viktor too much.

‘You won’t be dictating what happens in Unterwald after this. You’ve lost that right, and there won’t be any more killing. I’m taking you back to the Americans, and this time when they arrest you, I’ll make sure the charges stick.’

Noemi understood there was strength in Pascal’s decision. Viktor saw only weakness.

He lunged forward faster than either of them realised he could move.

He spun Pascal’s gun into the air with one punch and knocked Noemi flying with another.

He was maddened, bellowing. A bull filling the air with his rage.

Noemi scrambled to her feet, raking through the straw for her dropped weapon as Pascal hurled himself at his father.

She found the gun, but there was no clear line of sight – the men were locked together, rolling and snarling, fists colliding with bone.

They moved in and out of the light, their shapes blurring and resetting as Noemi tried to fling herself into a better position and fire.

She was moving as fast as they were. Which meant she missed the moment when Pascal somehow broke free and launched the blow which connected like a sledgehammer with Viktor’s chin.

But she heard the crunch. She saw Viktor fly backwards, she saw his boot kick the lantern.

She saw the straw around it catch alight in seconds and the flames leap like dancers across the wooden wall.

And the fire which had eaten the ghetto and destroyed Warsaw and Dresden roared its hungry way out of her dreams and back to life.