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silent.
    Felix could feel the tension rise again.
    â€˜Oh, I get it,’ she said flatly. ‘Right after I was denazified.’
    â€˜Oh, Marianne!’ Felix heard Willard murmur to his left. But he kept his gaze on the woman, who turned to face him at last.
    â€˜Now you know,’ she said. ‘I will understand perfectly if you should now wish to—’
    â€˜Her parents were the real Nazis,’ Willard said. ‘They deliberately sent her to Germany and—’
    â€˜Please!’ Felix forced a laugh and then followed it with one that was more genuine. ‘We draw a line, right? How old were you, Marianne? Eighteen?’
    â€˜Seventeen. Albert Speer was great friend to my father. We supplied steel. It should be smart for a steel maker to keep on the good books of Hitler’s favourite architect – especially since he also was Minister for Armaments!’
    â€˜A bit like the gravel company with Tony Palmer and me,’ Adam tried to say. ‘As will soon be explained . . .’
    Felix and Marianne ignored him; unspoken secrets were being passed behind their words. Besides, nothing that had happened in England this century could in any way equate with this.
    â€˜Who can answer for his or her opinions and actions at seventeen?’ Felix asked. ‘Not me, I do assure you! I had no love of the Jews, either – when I was seventeen and did not even know I was a Jew. For that I have my shame to carry. We draw a line, OK? The whole of Europe must draw a line. I have earned the right to say this, otherwise I am still not free. Sorry, Adam – the gravel company, you said? Were you telling Willard about this house that you and he—’
    â€˜Da-dee-da-dee-da . . .’ Adam sang loudly. ‘It’s a secret until we get there – which will be in about five minutes.’
    â€˜Have you and Tony telled Nicole of me?’ Marianne asked Adam.
    â€˜Not yet,’ he confessed awkwardly.
    â€˜Then I will – so soon as we meet. It’s not fair on her – not after what has happened her.’
    â€˜Oh?’ Felix asked.
    â€˜Willard was telling me yesterday night. Nicole worked as chef on her uncle’s restaurant on Trouville during the war. It was much . . . I mean very popular with Germans and so the maquis asked her to pretend to collaborate to get information out of them – which she has done. Her secret was well kept – too much so that, after liberation they have done to her what they have done to all collaborateuses .’ She mimed the shaving of her head.
    Felix whistled. ‘And she doesn’t know . . . that you . . . ?’
    â€˜She shall. That’s what I say.’
    Having reached the hamlet of Harmer Green, at the top of the hill, they all mounted the gig and set off on the more or less level drive toward Dormer Green. The county councils were putting back the road signs all over England. The one at the hilltop said TEWIN and DORMER GREEN .
    â€˜Are we close now?’ Willard asked.
    â€˜Close enough, maybe,’ Adam replied. ‘I’ll end the suspense, anyway. Tell me – d’you remember a night we spent beside an overturned truck on Lüneburg Heath? We were headed for Bielefeld and left the road.’
    â€˜Vaguely . . . were we sober?’
    â€˜D’you remember what we talked about?’
    He nodded. ‘The destruction of Hamburg.’
    â€˜And of Europe generally. But especially about the chance it had given us to rebuild everything in a different way – a chance that we hoped would never come again but which we mustn’t miss? Does that ring a bell?’
    â€˜I seem to remember a depressing conclusion – that people wouldn’t take the chance. They’d play safe and go back to all the old ways – the old ideologies.’
    Adam became slightly agitated; he wanted Willard to remember it