‘Oh, this Bunker! The atmosphere is so oppressive, my head is ringing. It feels as if the entire roof has fallen in on me …’ She was in genuine distress.

‘Perhaps some fresh air,’ Hencke suggested. ‘I would offer to escort you, but I’m lost beyond the end of the corridor.’

She studied him carefully for a moment. ‘Would you mind, Captain? I’d be grateful. Let me show you the way.’

Left with little choice, he followed her out into the corridor and past the guard, but not the way he had arrived. She guided him in the opposite direction, past a foul-smelling latrine and through yet another guarded steel door, but this time no one stopped to check him, the guard simply saluting him – or was it her? – and stepping back. Then on to a concrete stairway, which rose four flights until he could feel the soothing brush of fresh air on his face. They emerged into a garden from underneath the cover of a huge concrete blockhouse, twenty feet high, with an unfinished pill-box tower looming beside it. A broken cement mixer leaned drunkenly against its bare walls. In the fading light he could see the garden was mostly laid to grass with a few trees, but the lawn was badly churned from the impact of bombs and shells and most of the leaves had been stripped from the trees. Even the high walls of the Reich Chancellery surrounding the garden had been unable to provide much protection. A greenhouse nearby stood sagging and badly shattered; Hencke could smell the fragrance of jasmine wafting through the broken panes, made all the sweeter by the acrid smell of smoke which hung across the city.

They started walking along a narrow gravel path. She breathed deeply of the evening air, and the creases on her forehead vanished as quickly as they had come.

‘Where are we?’ Hencke enquired.

‘The Bunker garden. We’ve just come out of the emergency exit. You’re not supposed to use it, of course, except with the Fuehrer. Or me. You must be careful, Captain. Here less than a day and already taking tea with the Fuehrer and walks in his private garden. There are those who will grow jealous.’ Her mood was light and easy, but he had the impression that her words should not be dismissed as idle chatter.

‘Who?’

‘You’re very direct, Captain.’

‘I’ve only just arrived, remember. And I doubt whether I’ve got time to learn all the subtleties.’

‘Ah! Too direct, I fear, for this city. It’s not the habit here. People prefer to talk in code or riddles and you need an interpreter or an astrologist to find out what they really mean. Why, only an hour ago I heard that tub of lard Goering profess undying faith in the Fuehrer, yet already he is on his plane flying as far south as possible. With such faith, whole Reichs could be toppled, eh?’

Hencke’s brow puckered as he heard the bluntness of her comments aimed at one of the most powerful men in the land. Who was this woman of the Bunker? ‘I’m confused. Forgive me … Who are you?’

‘Me?’ She smiled, lowered her eyes, blushed a little? ‘Of course, you’ve never been in Berlin and Goebbels makes absolutely sure that nothing ever appears in the newspapers.’ She shrugged. ‘But you’ll know as soon as you ask any corporal in the Chancellery, and you seem to prefer directness … I am Eva Braun.’

His expression told her that the name meant nothing to him.

‘I am the Fuehrer’s companion. His mistress.’

‘Then it would seem that you, too, should beware in this city of jealousies, Fräulein Braun, for you certainly have far better access to the Fuehrer than me.’

She clapped her hands with delight, her green eyes sparkled and her voice fluttered with laughter. She moved gracefully, athletically; her body was slim, almost boyish, her teeth white and her lips naturally red, and she had a dimple in the middle of her chin. Although she could never be called a beauty there was an untainted naturalness about her which belied her age and her fashionable clothes. She seemed and sounded much younger than her thirty-odd years. ‘You are not like the others, Captain. I feel I can be honest with you. They all play games and intrigue against each other. I hope you won’t be long enough in Berlin to catch their disease.’

‘You don’t seem to like Berlin.’

‘I hate it. I’m a Bavarian, from the mountains.’

‘You must be looking forward to returning there.’

‘It … would be wonderful.’ Her words were wistful, as if she were describing a dream rather than the reality of a few days’ time.

‘I thought it was decided. Yet you sound uncertain, Fräulein Braun.’

‘We have made so many plans, over these past years …’ She trailed off, her gaiety gone.

Darkness had fallen and a chill was catching the air. There were goose-bumps on her bare arms but she seemed not to notice. She was wrapped in thought and her words came cautiously.

‘I’ve had fifteen wonderful years with him, Hencke. Every year has been like a lifetime and I have been so happy. I’m not afraid to die, if I have to. If that’s the price.’ She was twisting a ring on her little finger, the only jewellery she wore, and it had obviously come from him. ‘I know everything has to come to an end. Some time. I’m not complaining, really …’ She was biting her lip hard, losing her carefree composure.

‘You feel that much for him?’

‘He’s … been so kind to me. So considerate. I was only seventeen, an assistant in a photographer’s shop when we met. He’s older, of course, much older, and I’m such an empty-head where he’s so wise. Like a father. He trusts me because I don’t play games like the others. I don’t discuss politics or push new military strategies. And I never argue with him – I daren’t. We just relax together. He says that if he closes his eyes and reaches out he needs to know that someone will be there, not with a knife in their hand but with virtue and steadiness in their heart. And all the rest are liars, every one of them. Goebbels tries to manipulate him for his little propaganda games, Goering promises to defend the skies above Berlin with planes he hasn’t got, and as for that disgusting toad Bormann … He hates me because I’m the one woman he knows he can never have. He tells fearful lies, even pretends that he’s a non-smoker and vegetarian like the Fuehrer. Vegetarian! One night one of the girls found a salami hanging behind his pillow. And she says that’s the least of his revolting habits. But even with an oaf like him I have to share the Fuehrer.’ She sighed with resignation. ‘I have to share the Fuehrer, with the whole of Germany at times. I shouldn’t mind. I’ve been at his right hand all these years. That should be enough for any girl, shouldn’t it?’

Hencke was the schoolmaster once more, listening to a girl pour out her heart and her confusion, and in spite of her protestations of loyalty he knew there was something missing. ‘But it hasn’t been enough. Has it?’

‘All these years, at his right hand, but never properly by his side. Sharing him with so many. Worrying that the difference in our ages was so great he must take me for a silly chattering girl. Wondering what love was like for all the rest …’

Hencke tried to imagine the decrepit old man he had seen that afternoon lying beside this young, vibrant woman. But he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried. He realized it couldn’t be, or couldn’t have been, not for a very long time. So that was the problem. A young woman. Facing death. Alone. She deserved it, of course, for the folly of a loyalty so blind. She could be condemned for a love which was twisted, unnatural, obscene many would call it. But even as he shared in the distaste he knew that he, of all people, could not join in the condemnation. Not condemn her for her love, for love could never be a crime. That he understood all too well. They sat down in a gazebo which had somehow remained untouched by the assault on the city, and he reached in the dark to touch her hand, as he would have comforted one of his pupils. He did it instinctively, without thinking, and she did not draw back. He could feel the warm splash of tears on his skin. But no sound, no complaint. Damn it, she was fighting hard.