Through the Eye of Time by Trevor Hoyle

contribute to assure the peace of Europe.
    â€˜My very good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany “peace with honour”. I believe it is peace for our time. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.’
    There was a great shout of laughter at this closing remark and even Goebbels was laughing aloud, a rare event. The lights went up and all eyes turned to the Führer, who was noddingenthusiastically and with a broad grin on his face. I saw him glance for just a second at Eva who was sitting primly with her hands folded in her lap. She was obeying my instructions to the letter, remaining quiet and unobtrusive, seemingly in awe of the company and the occasion. The first phase had gone without a hitch, as was confirmed to me later when Heinz Linge, his personal manservant, remarked in a quiet aside that ‘the Führer finds Miss Braun quite charming. He would not be averse to seeing her at the Chancellery in the near future.’
    â€˜I’m sure Miss Braun would be delighted to attend,’ I answered.
    Eva was standing by one of the tall ornate windows overlooking the Wilhelmstrasse and I strolled across and touched her lightly on the shoulder. She turned, the cold clear light emphasizing the slant of her high cheekbones. For some reason I remembered the mole on the inner curve of her right breast.
    I said, ‘You were tremendous. He is very taken with you.’
    She looked at me and forced herself to smile; her eyes remained drab and without emotion. ‘Give me one of your cigarettes, those with the funny taste.’
    â€˜My own special brand,’ I said, lighting it for. her.
    She coughed and said, ‘What a pathetic trumped-up little fart he is. I can’t stand people with no sense of humour.’
    â€˜He has a sense of humour. The trouble is that he laughs at all the wrong things. And the man himself is humourless.’
    â€˜Yes, I suppose he must have a sense of humour,’ Eva said, holding the fixed smile like a mask, ‘otherwise with a face like that why bother to get up in the morning?’ She looked into the room. ‘Do I really have to sleep with that bow-legged short-arsed toad?’
    â€˜Careful. Some of them can lip-read. I shouldn’t worry too much about the sex thing. I’d be surprised if he could get it halfway up.’
    â€˜What are you giving him at the moment?’
    I caught Bormann’s eye and nodded to him pleasantly. ‘Do you mean medication? Too many different things to remember offhand. I should say somewhere in the region of thirty different preparations. I might try something new on him in the morning, I haven’t decided.’
    â€˜Add bromide to the list, for Christ’s sake,’ Eva said, smiling up at me with empty eyes.
    *
    The factory in Budapest is now in full swing and Felix is putting a new ‘line’ into production: a sulphonamide we have called
Ultraseptyl
, which should be on sale to the public by Christmas. This is a compound I came across by accident when I was messing about in the Clinic one day. Felix says it tastes revolting, but people don’t believe medicines are doing them any good unless they taste nasty; the nastier the better, I say.
    The last three or four months have been extremely satisfying and fruitful – not to say lucrative. As concessionnaires for the combined armed forces we have our fingers, Felix and I, in many pies. And certain schemes which I instigated are coming along nicely, with just the odd nudge to keep them on course. Altogether a gratifying state of affairs.
    Yesterday afternoon I came across Elisabeth crying in one of the offices upstairs. It seems that her young man (I vaguely recall he was on Himmler’s staff) has been given a posting, without any warning whatsoever to the Eastern Province. I commiserated with her and suggested