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phalanx of checkpoints within which roaming squads of German soldiers patrolled, ready to sweep up those foolish enough to be inside without good reason and the correct papers.
    A circle of safety for those on the German payroll, and a place where swastikas and portraits of the new leadership remained safe from resistance paintbrushes.
    Inside the ring security was tight; at its edge it was tighter still. Ever since the Waterloo Station bomb a few years earlier, the Germans had taken care to protect their own. Now, just a few years later, it was said that the pigeons in Trafalgar Square had to show their papers every morning before landing on Nelson’s Column.
    All this meant that Lotte Koehler felt safe as she walked with Anja along Regent Street toward Piccadilly. The snow was falling beautifully, silently sliding past the swastikas that hung from every other lamppost, virginal bright white against the bloodred flags that hung limp, barely drifting in the gathering breeze.
    A few nervous-looking cars crept down the road, back ends slipping this way and that on the compacting snow, their occupants rushing home before the storm closed the roads. Lotte noticed that the buses were almost all empty; the city was battening down. It made her wonder how Ernst’s meeting with Hahn was going and whether he’d be home before them.
    Maybe they’d be heading back to their real home soon?
    Back to Germany, back to being a family.
    “Can we build a snowman tonight when Daddy gets home?” Anja tugged on her hand.
    “Aren’t you a little old for snowmen?”
    “You are never too old for snowmen, Mother, even you,” Anja teased, and Lotte realized how much her little girl was growing—thirteen, nearly fourteen, not nearly a young woman but already her best friend.
    Anja beamed at her mother, red cheeked, strands of blond hair escaping from under her woolen hat.
    “Frau Koehler?” A young man in a smart suit and overcoat approached from where he was standing next to an Opel parked at the curb. “Your husband sent me to collect you.” The man pointed to the open rear door of the car.
    “My husband sent you?”
    “Yes, ma’am. He said I was to pick you up and take you home.” A smile, and almost impeccable German.
    “He said that?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” The man took a shopping bag from Anja. “The weather, he was worried.” The man pointed a finger up at the snow falling around them, just in case Lotte hadn’t noticed it.
    Lotte looked into the Opel. Another man was sitting in the driver’s seat, also smiling.
    “My husband Ernst sent you here to collect me?” Lotte turned to the first man.
    “Yes, ma’am.” The smile now didn’t quite reach his eyes.
    Lotte stepped back from the car, taking hold of Anja’s hand once more.
    “Who are you?”
    “We’re attached to your husband’s office; we provide low-key security, ma’am.”
    “I’ve never seen or heard of you.”
    “That shows we’re doing our job.” The smile again.
    Lotte looked at Anja and then back at him.
    “Do you have identification?”
    “Of course.” An ID card swept into sight from where it had been waiting in his right hand. “We do need to get moving . . .”
    “I have one more thing to buy.”
    “Allow us to take you to the shop. This is awful weather to be walking in.”
    Lotte lowered her head to take another look at the driver, who was now staring straight ahead, hands on the wheel, waiting.
    “The shop is just across the road; we can walk.”
    “I must insist, Frau Koehler.”
    Lotte took another half step and Anja, sensing tension, looked first at her mother and then cautiously over her shoulder at the half-empty street behind them.
    “There really is no need, the shop is just across the road.” Lotte pointed to a nearby tailor’s shop, barely visible through the plummeting snow that was getting heavier by the minute.
    From out of the shop two uniformed army officers appeared. They paused to light cigarettes in the