When he turned into the alley, he almost collided with her. She had stopped dead, out of sight of the main drag. There was just enough light from a dimmed street lamp for him to make her out. She was quite young, he saw, mid-twenties. She was dressed smartly but sensibly. Her rather square face showed strength.

She looked at him, amused. 'Are you all right, Sergeant Tanner?'

'I don't get out of breath running ten yards, don't you worry. Now look here, Miss-'

'Doris Keeler.'

'I'm quite sure you know all about the curfew. Whatever you're up to I suggest you come with me…'

There was a half-smile on her lips. 'Three, two, one.'

'Oh. How did you know my name?'

'Mary did say you could be a little low on the uptake sometimes.'

Mary?'

'Mary Wooler. A mutual friend, Sergeant Tanner.' She held out her hand.

Confused, he took it and shook. 'Now look here,' he said, trying to regain control of the situation, 'I'm not sure what your game is, but the curfew is no bloody joke. So whatever you want from me-'

'Just a couple of minutes. That's all. If any Boche come by you can make a show of taking me in. Please hear me out, Sergeant. You'd do that for Mary, wouldn't you?'

He frowned. 'I wouldn't use words like "Boche round here. But you're not from around here, are you?'

'I grew up in Colchester. Still live there, or at least I still have a flat there; I've been inside the protectorate for months. That's where I met Mary, in Colchester, during a raid. I used to be with the ARP.'

'Used to be?'

'Things happened. I got fed up with the war, and decided to do something a bit more active. Look, Sergeant, Mary wants your help. And the people she's working for.'

'Who, the WVS?'

She smiled. 'Not them. MI-14. Military intelligence.'

'I don't believe you! Mary?'

'Do you remember a man called Ben Kamen? An Austrian.'

'Of course I remember him. Little chap. Friend of her son Gary's.'

'Yes, and of Hilda's.'

Hearing his daughter's name felt like a blow to the stomach. 'Go on.'

'MI-14 believe Kamen is being held in an SS facility at Richborough.'

'Where's that?'

'Kent. And they want him out of there.'

'Why?'

'Well, I don't know, and I don't need to know. But it was important enough for MI-14 to contact us, through me – I already knew Mary, she mentioned my name – and she suggested I should get hold of you, and ask for your help.'

'Whoa, whoa.' He held up his hands. 'And this "us of yours, I suppose-'

'I can see you've guessed.'

'The auxiliaries.'

'We call ourselves the resistance.'

'Well, I bloody don't. I have to deal with the consequences of your cowboys-and-Indians indulgences.'

'You're talking about the reprisals.'

'Yes, I'm talking about the reprisals,' he said grimly. 'When the leaves fell last winter and they cleared out most of you lot with your "scally wagging, I cheered, I can tell you. And you're all a pack of lefties anyhow as far as I can see.'

She wasn't perturbed by this. 'It's true a lot of the leaders fought for the Republicans in Spain. In fact, Ben Kamen did, you know. But it's the methods they brought back from over there that count now, Sergeant, not the politics.'

He glanced around, making sure they were still alone. 'I know the bloody Germans have got to be fought,' he hissed. 'I lost a daughter to this war. It's a question of how to fight them. I'm a Sussex copper, Miss Keeler. I keep the peace, that's my job. What makes you think I'd be any use running around in Kent? Is it just that I know Mary Wooler?'

'Well, partly that. And the fact that you're sleeping with an SS-UNTERSCHARFUHRER.'

He felt his blood rise. 'You know about that, do you?'

'You're not exactly discreet. And nor is she. She boasts about it!'

'So what does Julia have to do with it?'

'It's just that she is a close colleague of SS-Standartenfuhrer Josef Trojan. And he is involved in experiments at Richborough. Experiments for which he needs Kamen, for some reason.'

'What kind of experiments?'

'I don't know,' she said simply.

'And you want me to deceive Julia, somehow, so you can get close to Trojan, and Kamen. Is that it?'

'Pretty much. Why, does that give you a moral problem?' She laughed. 'I mean, you're sleeping with an SS officer!'

'What is this – blackmail?'

'No, no. I'm just trying to understand.'

'I don't pretend to understand it myself,' he admitted. 'Call it lust if you want. Must say I thought I was past all that.'

'Maybe it's the uniform,' she said archly. 'And what does she want? I mean, she could have her pick of iron-muscled young SS officers, couldn't she? No offence, but-'

'I think she's lost something too,' he said. 'She's lost her soul, mucking about with all those bloody Germans. Her English soul. So here she is with me. I mean, you can't get much more English than a copper, can you?'

'You're a decent man, Sergeant,' said Doris. 'If I can see that, she must.'

'Best not to talk such rubbish.'

'All right. But the question is, will you help us?'

'I don't know. You clowns in the auxiliaries-'

'Look, if you won't do this for Mary – and you certainly won't do it for me – won't you think about it for the sake of Hilda's memory?'

George felt his fists bunch. 'Don't you bloody talk about Hilda!'

XVI

In the end, it was well after eleven by the time Ernst turned up at the Royal Victoria Hotel, a little way out of the centre of town at St Leonards. And she was later still.

He had booked a table in the restaurant, and he sat, self-conscious as he waited. An unctuous waiter came to take his order, speaking in smooth German; Ernst asked for a bottle of French wine, for he thought it would please Claudine. The waiter brought him a list, the names in German and the prices in Reichsmarks and sterling, and Ernst picked a bottle, more or less at random.

There were plenty of uniforms here, mostly higher rank than his, and a few civilians, business types perhaps, come to investigate the investment opportunities the Reich insisted were to be found here in the protectorate, all blandly ignoring the curfew rules that confined lesser folk. One civilian sat alone at the table next to him, drinking brandy, reading a German-language edition of the Albion Times. Everybody spoke German, including the staff, although Ernst detected the stiff strain of an English accent a few times, expensive British types mingling easily with their conquerors.

And then she came in, swaying through the polished wood of the hotel bar as if she owned the place, defying the curfew herself. She wore a slim-fitting dress and what looked like silk stockings, bright red stilettos, a powder-blue jacket, and a small hat like a trilby set at a teasing angle. Her lips, red like her shoes, were the brightest thing in the room. She drew glances, covert and otherwise, from every man in the room. But she made straight for Ernst.

He stood as she approached. 'I can't believe you're here – I mean-'

'I know.' She leaned over the table, letting him kiss her cheeks.

He smelled perfume and face powder, a scent that wasn't like the schoolteacher he had known in Boulogne at all, but under it there was something, a deeper animal scent that he had never forgotten. She sat easily, crossing her legs. She snapped her fingers, and a waiter brought her a glass and filled it.

He said, 'It's so strange seeing you here – it's so different.'

'Well, nothing's the same, is it? Even if you stand still, it all changes around you. That's the war, I suppose. Look, have you got a light?' She produced a slim case of cigarettes.

He fumbled for a match. Oddly he was reminded of the incident in the car, when Heinz had offered Alfie a cigarette. He had lodged the children with an aunt in Hastings for the night; he would take them home tomorrow. It was hard to think of that strange other family of his now; it was another category of reality, he thought, separated from the universe that contained the woman before him. 'I've never seen you dressed so well-'