The Quality of Mercy (27 page)

Without meaning to, the older children – aware of the danger they were in – conveyed to the younger ones their fear of being taken off the train and sent who knew where. The three adults who had been allowed to travel with the children had been made to leave them at the border and return to Vienna. Edward was unable to discover if the Dreisers had been permitted to accompany the train. None of the children seemed to know the names of the adults who had come with them to the border.

Among the older children, tears quickly turned to smiles when the voluntary workers – mostly Catholic but some Jewish – handed round hot cocoa and sandwiches. The smaller children, bewildered and asking for their parents, were hard to console and clutched the hands of older brothers or sisters with desperate strength while those without anyone at all retreated into their own private misery.

Verity and Edward – alarmed by what they had taken on – did their best to help sort out the children going to Mersham. They were to board another train bound for Boulogne where they were to take ship for England. All the time, Edward was looking for one particular child and finally found her twisting her plaits with one hand and sucking her thumb with the other. It was Heidi, Joan Miller’s child. But where was Joan?

Edward looked at his watch. ‘She should have been here hours ago,’ he fretted. ‘I hope she managed to escape from Mandl. I don’t know what we’ll do with the child if she doesn’t come soon.’

At that moment, a chauffeur-driven car drew up and Joan rushed out, furs flying, her usual icy calm replaced by blind panic. She saw Heidi at once and ran over to pick her up. The child seemed only moderately pleased to see her and Edward heard her ask, ‘
Wo ist Papa
?’

Before Joan could answer – though what answer she could have given Edward did not know – a taxi drew up and Mandl appeared beside them.

‘Papa!’ cried the little girl in delight as she struggled to release herself from her mother’s embrace.

‘
Heidi! Komm’mein Mädel
!’ Mandl called to her.

‘Stay with me. We are not going with your father,’ Joan said, clutching the little girl to her.

‘Why can’t I go to Papa?’ demanded the child. ‘I want to be with Papa – not with you.’

At these words the courage seemed to leave Joan, and Edward thought she might faint. She dropped Heidi who sped off to join her father. He picked her up and cuddled her. As he turned to go, a look of triumph crossed his face. Joan’s expression conveyed to Edward her agony and his heart went out to her. He moved toward her to give her what comfort he could. Mandl noticed him for the first time and said in English, ‘So this was your doing? You thought you could outwit me and steal away my baby? Never!’

He spoke with such passion Edward finally understood what Joan had meant when she called him possessive.

‘Mandl! Let the child go. She ought to be with her mother,’ he replied as calmly as he could.

‘With this whore?
Diese Hure
. . .?’ he answered, nodding contemptuously towards Joan. ‘Never! You are an interfering
Schwein
and I ought to kill you, but not in front of my little one.’ He stroked Heidi’s head and kissed her. ‘You English – so arrogant, so
viel besser
. . . It is my comfort that my guns will soon reduce your . . .
eitel Selbstzufriedenheit
– your smug self-satisfaction will turn to awe and terror at the might of the German nation in arms.’

Hearing the word gun, Joan seemed suddenly to wake from her trance. She opened her handbag and, for a second, Edward thought she was looking for a cigarette. Instead, he saw she had in her hand a small silver pistol.

She said as though it were a groan, ‘Mandl, give me back my child.’

He turned and, as he did so, she shot him. Only, as he was holding the little girl to his chest, the bullet, instead of hitting him, entered the back of Heidi’s head. At first, Mandl did not realize what had happened. The little girl did not cry out but he felt her shudder and then go slack in his arms. As he adjusted his hands to support her head, he felt the warm blood ooze stickily over his fingers and cried out in sheer disbelief. Joan made as if to go to her child but stumbled and fell to the ground. As she put out her hand to break her fall, she dropped the gun. So innocent-looking, more like a toy than something that could kill, it slid across the platform and fell on to the tracks beneath the still-steaming train.

Three days later Edward and Verity were walking by the river. Mersham was alive with the cries of children enjoying themselves, playing croquet and ping-pong or those secret games the rules of which adults can only guess at. A few lay crumpled on the grass, still shocked and dazed, unable to come to terms with their sudden removal from all that was familiar. However much they tried to comfort them, their English guardians could not explain to the little ones why they had been parted from their mothers and fathers. Verity, who was not very good with children, found herself hugging one little boy, rigid with grief, whispering to him the sweet nothings Adam – her lost German lover – had taught her when they had lain in each other’s arms. She had no idea whether these endearments were appropriate but they seemed to soothe the child.

‘I think this has really opened Gerald’s eyes to what Hitlerism means in reality. I’ve heard much less of how Hitler is misunderstood and a peace-lover at heart.’

‘Yes,’ Verity agreed, ‘and have you noticed how much he likes having the children here?’

‘You think he feels he’s doing something, however small, to right the wrong done to them?’

‘Yes, but I think it’s simpler than that. He enjoys having the castle full of young people and all those stiff formal rooms echoing to the sounds of children’s voices.’

‘I think you’re right, V. The thing is with Gerald – though I’ll kill you if you quote me – is that he has very little imagination. He understands intellectually what is going on in Germany – he reads
The Times
– but he can’t grasp the enormity of what is happening to the Jews. Having these children here under his roof brings it home to him – literally.’

They walked on in companionable silence. When they were out of sight of the castle, Verity put her arm through his.

‘Do you blame yourself for what happened to little Heidi?’

‘Of course I do,’ Edward said roughly. ‘If I hadn’t interfered she would still be alive. I knew in my heart I ought not to have got involved with Joan. She’s trouble.’

‘You did your best. You couldn’t have known that Mandl would find out what was going on. He bullied the poor old nanny to tell him. She was the weak link.’

‘I know that but . . .’

‘But what? If we didn’t try to help people because we were afraid of making matters worse, we would never have got these children out of Vienna.’

‘That’s different. You know it is. These children had no future in Nazi Austria. We had to do what we could for them. But Heidi had nothing to fear.’

‘Dear Edward! Remember how you chided me? You too have a tendency to blame yourself unreasonably. Your conscience is very tender. It’s one of the things we have in common – at least I’d like to think so but it does make life uncomfortable.’

‘We should be uncomfortable. Why should we be comfortable in a world where violent death is the norm?’

‘So, if it’s the norm, why do we care when individuals like Georg die violently?’

‘We care in order to keep ourselves human. I’ve told you before, V, it’s what I hate about Communism as much as Fascism – the idea that the “common good” is something to which individual men and women have to be sacrificed. Once we label groups of people, we dehumanize them. Surely you can see that?’

‘Of course I do but sometimes you have to label people, as you put it. Lloyd George gave the pension to “old people”. To everyone – not just those who deserved it. And every child ought to have enough to eat and a sanitary place to live.’

‘You know what I mean,’ Edward said gruffly.

Ever since that moment at the Swiss border when Joan Miller had killed her child, he had been sunk in gloom. Fortunately, there had been so much to do getting the children across an angry English Channel and then by charabanc to Mersham that he had not, until now, had time to indulge his appetite for self-punishment.

Verity decided she had to distract him.

‘You know, I think I’ve discovered why Peter Gray died. It wasn’t very difficult.’

‘You have?’ Edward lifted his head and looked at her with something like interest.

‘Yes. It was all in the picture.’

‘The one he was painting the day he died?’

‘Yes. He’d painted almost the same picture – or at least the same view – time after time in every kind of light, in good weather and bad. So I had to ask myself why. Or rather I asked Reg Harman. He said that, apart from Vera, the only woman he had ever loved was his wife.’

‘And she had died soon after they married?’

‘Yes, of influenza like so many others.’

‘And the view was special because . . . ?’

‘It was where they had courted. Betty – his wife – had been born and brought up in the farmhouse at the bottom of Tarn Hill.’

‘I remember it. It’s on the Broadlands estate.’

‘That’s right. And I discovered’ – she could hardly keep the triumph out of her voice – ‘that Mountbatten was about to knock it down to build new housing for his tenants.’

‘I think I see. Gray heard about this and . . .’

‘It made him depressed. The perfect view, which summed up everything that had been good in his life, was to be changed, desecrated. He started taking ergot again – I’m only guessing here – to overcome his depression. It made him ill – forgetful . . . worse – it gave him nightmares.’

‘Still guessing?’

‘No. I tracked down his doctor. He confirmed that Gray was being visited with bad memories of the war – memories he thought he had put behind him – and he feared for his mental health.’

‘So you think he committed suicide by taking too much ergot?’

‘One can’t know for certain but I think that on the day he died he was on his way to talk to Mountbatten – to beg him to leave the farmhouse as it was.’

‘Mountbatten never said anything about meeting him.’

‘I don’t think he did meet him. In fact, I don’t believe he had any idea that Gray wanted to remonstrate with him. I think Gray saw the activity below him, guessed Mountbatten was having one of his house parties and decided on the spur of the moment to beard him in his den and beg him not to spoil his view.’

‘On the spur of the moment? I think I remember you saying the note he made on the canvas was either an R or a squiggle or a . . .’

‘An M! Of course! It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. He was gearing himself up to go to Broadlands. That’s why he forgot his palette knife. He wasn’t intending to paint that day.’

‘So why did he take his paints and the picture?’

‘As a talisman? To focus on what he was in danger of losing? Who knows? Perhaps it was just automatic. He reached for his paintbox because he always took it with him to Tarn Hill.’

Edward was silent. ‘Yes, I think you’ve cracked it. Are you going to tell Vera?’

‘I think I owe her that.’

‘And Lord Louis?’

‘What’s the point? If I’m right, it’s still not his fault.’

‘You know, old thing,’ Edward said, cheering up slightly, ‘it’s rather a relief to think that Gray wasn’t killed.’

‘Don’t call me “old thing”,’ Verity corrected him automatically. ‘Makes me feel like an armchair.’

‘Sorry, but Gray . . .’

‘The war damaged him and the influenza killed his wife.’

‘Yes, but . . . Well, do you think that perhaps Georg also died accidentally?’

She furrowed her brow. ‘I’m beginning to think we’ll never be able to prove anything else.’

‘Let’s look at the facts,’ Edward said and Verity was glad to hear his voice lift. ‘There’s no question someone lured him down to the stables. He wouldn’t have gone there of his own volition. The lighter in the straw was a Camel and the first time I met Rose he gave me a Camel and lit it with his Camel lighter. I remember it vividly.’

‘But there are hundreds and hundreds of Camel cigarette lighters. They give them out to publicize the brand.’

‘Granted, but probably not round here.’

‘And Georg wanted to sell the Dürer through Rose.’

‘Or at least get it valued by him.’

‘And there’s no sign of it so we can assume Rose stole it, knowing he’d get away with it.’

‘If Georg was dead,’ Edward agreed. ‘He either found him dead and took the opportunity to steal the picture or he killed him.’

‘How?’

‘By exciting the horse – but how could he have done that? I can’t imagine he knows anything about horses. He’s not the type.’

‘Perhaps the pony – a stallion, overfed and skittish – was frightened by someone or something . . . by Georg and lashed out. Perhaps it
was
an accident. But you remember how I told you I’d found a clear print of a car or a motorbike tyre outside the barn on the far side of the stable yard?’

‘And one of the grooms told me he’d heard a motorbike when they went to get the stretcher for Sunita. Oh God, V!’ Edward said, rubbing his forehead. ‘I think I know who must have been riding that bike.’

‘Not . . .?’

‘Who else could it be?’

‘What’ll you do next?’ Verity asked anxiously.

‘I’ll have to ask him, won’t I?’

‘Now?’

‘I think we need to clear it up, don’t you?’

‘Let me alone! My husband is only in the next room.’ Ayesha’s eyes flashed and Mountbatten let go her hand.

‘I was only trying to say . . .’

‘It was all a mistake,’ she broke in. ‘I ought not to have allowed it.’

‘Don’t tell me it was all my fault!’ he said scornfully.

‘I’m not saying it was your fault, Dickie. I wanted you and . . .’

‘And I wanted you! I still want you, damn it. Forget about Sunny . . .’

‘Of course I can’t forget about him,’ she countered fiercely, managing to keep her voice low. ‘I love him. I ought not to have given way. He’d never forgive me.’

‘But why not?’ Mountbatten sounded puzzled. ‘You’ve done your duty. You’ve given him a son and a daughter almost as beautiful as her mother. Why should he mind you having a little fun?’