Philip Hensher

New Year’s Eve, 1988. Two people are dancing an inexpert tango in no-man’s-land as snow falls. Who, what, are they waiting for? Philip Hensher’s Berlin is a city of escape and hiding, where wary obsessions form and grow. Shady Mr Picker has a dream of a rose-coloured dawn; he knows he could...

'So the garden of number eighty-four is nothing more than a sort of playground for all the kids of the neighbourhood?' 'I wouldn't say all,' Mrs Arbuthnot said. 'I would have said it was only the Glovers' children.' 'All of them?' Mrs Warner - Karen, now - said. 'The girl seems so quiet. It's...