‘I’m sure that thought occurred to them.’
‘So even if they do discover some link to our intelligence service it’s unlikely they’d want to air it. Mud sticks, after all.’
‘Quite. And there’s no prospect of anything more coming out at this end, is there? Lang’s background remains a mystery as far as our press is concerned. My impression is they’ve given up digging. I think your friends in Whitehall can sleep easy.’
‘My friends, Chief Inspector?’ Bennett favoured him with a stony glance.
‘A slip of the tongue, sir.’
Sinclair had derived some amusement from the minuet he had just performed with his superior. Not so Holly, who cleared his throat loudly.
‘Well, I think it’s a damned disgrace,’ he said bluntly. ‘The whole wretched business. What’s worse is, no one’s going to answer for it.’
In the embarrassed silence that followed, Sinclair returned Probst’s letter to his pocket.
‘And we’ve no cause to congratulate ourselves, either.’ The chief super was working up a head of steam. ‘There’s only one person who comes out of this with any credit: John Madden. I hope you’ll tell him that when you see him next, Angus. And thank him from me.
‘I will, Arthur,’ Sinclair promised him. He looked at his colleague with affection. ‘And sooner than you think. I’m going down to Highfield this weekend.’
A solitary figure was standing on the platform when Sinclair’s train pulled into Highfield. As he stepped from the compartment, the glint of sunlight on golden hair caught his eye. Helen Madden advanced down the platform to greet him.
‘John was planning to meet you himself. But the children insisted on an expedition into the woods. They’ve been cooped up for days with the rain we’ve been having. They’ll come back soaked, I know.’
The showery weather she’d been speaking of had begun to clear at lunchtime and the chief inspector’s train had passed through sunlit fields bright with spring flowers.
‘The house is packed at the moment. I hope you won’t find it too much for you. Franz was so pleased when he heard you were coming down. But you won’t see him till this evening. He’s been in London all day house-hunting.’
The blue woollen dress she was wearing matched the colour of her eyes, Sinclair noted. The pleasure he took in her company had never diminished with the years and he felt a lightening of his step as she linked her arm in his. They went out to where her car was parked.
‘I know you’ve been away, but it seems ages since we last saw you. I’m afraid it took me a while to get over that dreadful business. I needed time to recover.’
She glanced at him. They were driving past the village green.
‘But I’ve thought of you often, and particularly the day we went down to Midhurst. That family… the Ramsays… invited us. Not for the first time, either, poor dears. They wanted to thank John. But I hadn’t felt able to face them before. I thought it would be too upsetting. But it turned out to be a lovely day. Mrs Ramsay had organized a picnic for the children on the Downs and they’d also invited the man who was stabbed, Sam Watkin, and his family. It was his friend whose body was found in the burned out barn later. Eddie was his name. But they’d all known him, it seems, and they talked of him with such affection, particularly the girl, Nell, and her mother. They’d been trying to help him find a proper job – the Ramsays, I mean – and John and I could see how upset they still were by what happened.’
She mused in silence for a few moments.
‘Afterwards we walked up to the farm. The children insisted on seeing it and Nell told them the whole story. Needless to say, they were spellbound. They wanted to hear all the grisly details. It was poor John who couldn’t bear to listen. All he could think of was what might have happened. He knew better than anyone how close it came to ending in tragedy. People who don’t know him think he’s detached and unaffected by things. It’s because of his manner. But he’s not like that at all. He’s quite the opposite.’
She brushed a tear from her eye, then turned towards him, smiling. ‘But I don’t have to tell you that, do I?’ She touched his cheek with her hand as she spoke, a simple gesture that brought joy to the heart of the chief inspector, who saw that after all he had been forgiven. ‘That was a month ago, and it was only a few days later that I went to Germany.’
‘Yes, I heard about that from John. He rang me.’ The chief inspector became animated. ‘You brought Dr Weiss and his family back?’
‘I went over to help with the move. It seemed sensible, since I’m the one who speaks German, and I worried that Franz might not be able to manage on his own. You know his wife died?’
‘John told me.’
‘That was soon after Christmas. And something else dreadful had happened. They have two children, a son studying in America, and a daughter called Lotte, who was married to a university lecturer in Berlin, a young man called Josef Stern. He was active in politics, too much so, perhaps, and in the weeks before the Nazis came to power he got involved in a street battle with some brown shirt thugs and was terribly beaten. He never recovered consciousness and died in hospital. So thank heavens I went. They were both distraught, Franz and his daughter, quite unable to cope, and I took care of everything.
‘They had a house on the Wannsee, outside Berlin. It’s by the lake and lovely in summer when the trees are in leaf. But we never saw the sun while I was there, just leaden cloud. There’s a wall at the back of the house, and on the day I got there I found a Star of David daubed in yellow on it. I had it removed. The next day it was back, and again I made the gardener wash it off. And so it went on, day after day. I never saw who did it: there wasn’t a soul about. But each morning the star was there again. I finally got the house cleared and the furniture carted away, but I felt dreadful doing it. John and I spent a holiday with the family there two years ago and all I could think of was how happy they had been.’
She fell silent, and they continued through the village, passing the locked gates of Melling Lodge. Soon they were turning into the familiar drive where the lime trees were green with new leaf.
‘Franz is looking for a house in Hampstead. He wants to set up in practice. Lotte will live with him. She has a daughter called Hana, who’s six. Lucy’s taken a great fancy to her. She has such passions for people, my Lucy. Did you know your Billy Styles is one of her favourites?’
They’d arrived at the front door. Helen’s smile had returned.
‘He brought his fiancee down to meet us not long ago. Elsie’s her name. It must have been trying for the poor girl. Being put on parade is never easy. But to make matters worse, Lucy spent the entire day stalking her like a panther, watching her every move. Heaven knows when she’ll pluck up the courage to visit us again.’
Shown to his room, Sinclair returned downstairs ten minutes later to find his hostess sitting in a garden chair on the terrace, from which vantage point all the colours of spring were to be seen in the beds bordering the lawn and the air was sweet with the smell of honeysuckle.
Some movement was visible in a shrubbery near the bottom of garden and presently a man emerged from it pushing a wheelbarrow. The chief inspector peered in that direction. He was about to speak, when Helen gestured, pointing.
‘There they are now.’
Following the direction she indicated, Sinclair caught sight of a pair of darting figures which had appeared, as if by magic, at the very bottom of the garden, flitting through the orchard like sprites, two separate forms that nevertheless seemed joined, since they moved as one.
‘Those are the two girls,’ Helen explained, seeing the chief inspector’s furrowed brow. ‘Lucy’s on the left. I told her about Hana’s father dying and her response has been to keep a firm grip on her. To show her that she’s there and won’t disappear. At least, I think that’s how she reasons.’
They watched as the two figures suddenly veered to one side and set off in pursuit of the man with the wheelbarrow who was disappearing at that moment into another part of the shrubbery and whose movements the chief inspector was following with close attention. His observation was interrupted once again, however, by the appearance of Madden, who came striding out of the orchard just then in the company of a pair of young boys, one of whom Sinclair recognized as his friends’ son.
‘Who’s the other?’ he asked Helen, shading his eyes. The sun was low in the sky; the afternoon light was fading.
‘Will Stackpole’s son, Ted. It means a lot to me that he and Rob are such friends. Will’s someone I love. He was the first boy who ever kissed me.’ She smiled in recollection. ‘I was Lucy’s age, six or seven. He made eyes at me all one summer. I love seeing them together now, the boys. But it makes me anxious. They keep growing older…’
‘Why should that bother you?’
‘Because there’s going to be another war.’
She spoke the words in so natural a tone it was a moment or two before the chief inspector registered what she’d said.
‘Oh, surely not.’ He responded automatically. ‘I mean you can’t be sure… so many things can happen…’ He fell silent. She seemed not to have heard him.
‘I can’t tell you how awful I felt in Berlin.’ Helen’s eyes were on the figures advancing up the lawn. ‘The flags, the uniforms, the strutting. And the never-ending rant. I saw one uniform. It was black. Black from head to toe. The badge on the cap was a death’s head. Can you imagine?’
She held her face in her hands.
‘I knew then…’
He said nothing. Allowing her time to recover, he waved to Madden, who waved back, but then gestured to demonstrate some intention on his part, which presently became clear when he and the boys changed course, directing their steps towards the side of the house where the kitchen lay.
‘They’re going to leave their muddy shoes there. They’ll come in the other way.’
Helen ran her fingers through her hair. Next moment the smile was back on her lips and he saw that something else had caught her eye.
The two little girls had emerged from the shrubbery where they’d been hidden from sight and were running up the lawn, still hand in hand, towards them. The fairer of the two whom he now recognized as Lucy held a bunch of yellow daffodils in her free hand. As they ascended the steps of the terrace, Helen rose to meet them.
‘For you, Mummy,’ Lucy declared breathlessly, thrusting the dripping flowers into her grasp. Well spattered with mud, the pair seemed in haste to continue on their headlong course, but Helen checked them.
‘What on earth have you been doing? Just look at poor Hana.’
She spoke a few words of German to the dark-haired child, who replied breathlessly in the same language. Both girls were pawing the terrace in their eagerness to be off.
‘It’s time for your baths.’ Helen turned to her daughter again.
‘Mary’s waiting upstairs. Take Hana with you. And don’t pull her arm off-!’
The warning came too late. Shrieking as one, the two little girls sprang away and as though glued together ran full tilt across the terrace and into the house.
‘Introductions will have to wait, I’m afraid.’
Leaving his hostess to shake the water from the bouquet she’d been given, Sinclair got up from his chair and moved to the edge of the terrace. He peered down into the gloaming. The figure he’d noticed earlier was advancing up the lawn now, pushing the wheelbarrow in front of him. The chief inspector could contain his curiosity no longer.
‘Who on earth is that?’ he asked. ‘And what’s he got on his head?’
‘Can’t you guess?’ Helen answered in a teasing tone. ‘It’s Topper. Surely you remember him.’
‘I’ve not had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. But I recall the name well. Am I not right in thinking he was summoned to give evidence at the inquest in Guildford… and never appeared?’ Sinclair turned to regard his hostess. ‘Harbouring fugitives, are you, Dr Madden?’
Helen smiled. ‘He turned up out of the blue just after Christmas. John set him up in one of the stalls at the farm with plenty of bedding and a stove. Luckily Tom Cooper went down with rheumatism just then. I say luckily, because Topper doesn’t like accepting charity beyond the odd meal. So we’ve turned him into a sort of substitute gardener, and he seems happy doing it.’
She paused. The figure had come to a halt just below the terrace and Sinclair took in the spectacle of the hat with its jaunty pheasant plume.
He watched as Topper removed it and bowed. Helen smiled to him in response.
‘Goodnight, Topper. And thank you the lovely flowers.’
Replacing his hat, he continued on his way without a word, disappearing around the side of the house.
‘John says he’ll pack up his bundle one of these days and move on, but I hope not. I don’t like to think of him wandering around. He’s too old. He needs a home.’ She was looking at the daffodils in her hand and he saw her brush something from her cheek. ‘My hope is he’ll find it hard to leave now. He so loves the children.’
‘The children?’ Sinclair glanced at the flowers she was holding, then at her face, which was turned away. ‘Aye… the children.’
‘Oh, dear…’ She made no pretence now about wiping away the tears which had started from her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Angus. I still haven’t got over that awful business. I lost my nerve for a while, and I’m not sure I’ve got it back. I’m afraid of the future. I see dreadful things ahead. Look what’s happened to poor Franz and his family. How many others will suffer in the same way? Who will help them? It’s as though some terrible dark night is about to descend on us all and I want to protect the people I love and care for, but I don’t know how, or even if I can…’
‘My dear…’ Seeing her distress, the chief inspector put his arm around her and tried to comfort her. ‘It’s because you’re still upset. These wounds take a long time to heal.’
‘Yes, of course…’ She touched his cheek. ‘Dear Angus…’