engravings were forever on the front page of The Stormer. All were Heroes of the Revolution: Vice-Leader Comrade Beria; His Holiness Comrade Crowley; Colonel Clement, the head of the SS; and, of course, the Comrade Leader himself.
Trixie was beside herself with excitement: to be actually meeting the Leader in the flesh! It was the dream of every good member of the RightNixes – the ForthRight’s youth movement – to meet with the Great Leader face to face.
She tried to calm herself. The Leader’s arrival had been so unexpected that she and her father had had to rush to greet their distinguished guest, but now she stood with her presentation bouquet and dressed, a little uncomfortably it had to be admitted, in a stylised peasant’s dress – the Party was encouraging women to shun the ‘decadent’ styles coming out of Paris – embroidered with blue Valknuts. Trixie hated the dress, but her governess had insisted.
Her father gave the Party salute, intoned the Party oath and then bowed a greeting. ‘Good afternoon, my Leader, you do my home tremendous honour.’
‘You are not wearing a uniform, Dashwood,’ said Heydrich, who then proceeded to make a critical study of the garden, obviously assessing the defences. ‘I require all members of my government, when on official business, to wear their uniform. By wearing a uniform we signal that we are all of one accord. It demonstrates, Comrade Commissar Dashwood, that you have sublimated your individuality to the will of the Leader and of the Party.’ He tapped at the side of his highly polished boot with the riding crop he was carrying. ‘One day all men in the ForthRight will be obliged to wear uniform, and when they do it will signal that their identity is in the Party’s gift; that individuality and independence of thought are decadent and obsolete, that their only function in life is to obey.’
The Comrade Leader spoke very quickly, as though his mouth had to hurry to keep pace with his mind. Trixie was still musing on what he said – trying to memorise it for repetition at the Academy – when he moved to another subject. ‘I have come to interview the Daemon,’ said Heydrich abruptly. ‘You have a study I might use for this purpose?’
‘Why yes, Comrade Leader.’
‘Then have the creature brought there.’ Heydrich’s gaze drifted towards Trixie. ‘Is this your daughter, Dashwood? Is this the girl who has been assisting with the Daemon’s interrogation?’
‘Indeed, Comrade Leader, may I present my daughter, Lady Trixiebell Dashwood.’
Trixie curtsied and automatically recited the mantra of the RightNixes, ‘One Race Defines Us, One Party Unites Us and One Leader Commands Us.’ She held out the bouquet and one of the Leader’s flunkies took it.
‘Charming,’ murmured the Leader as he held out his hand to Trixie. ‘You are to be congratulated, Comrade Commissar, on siring such a perfect flower of Aryan womanhood. With girls as beautiful and as racially pure as this I am confident that the bloodstock of the ForthRight will soon be free of the contaminants of the UnderMentionable races.’ He smiled at Trixie. ‘You must always remember, Lady Trixiebell, that ABBA has given the women of the ForthRight the divine task of breeding out the racial impurities that defile our Aryan birthright. My advice is that you marry young and be fruitful.’
During the moment when the Leader had shaken her hand she had a chance to study him more carefully. He was tall, narrow-hipped and lithe – his svelte body wonderfully presented by his ink-black uniform – and his long face was dressed with an imperious nose and narrow-set, very pale eyes. He was a perfect specimen of the ‘ForthRight Man’, the Aryan male.
An impish, unpatriotic and decidedly dangerous thought popped into Trixie’s head: perhaps though he could even be considered too perfect. It might have been how soft his hand was when he had shaken hers. It might have been that his uniform was too immaculate or that his eyes contained no humour or humanity. There was something almost doll-like about him: as though she were meeting with an emotionless, soulless automaton.
The slap of the Leader’s riding crop against the black leather of his jackboot snapped Trixie out of her reverie. ‘So to work, Comrade Commissar; we cannot, through indolence or the squandering of time, allow the reins of government to slip from our grasp.’
As Heydrich and his party were shown into the house, Trixie and her father trotted after the Leader’s delegation. Trixie was just in time to see the Leader being shown into her father’s study and Crowley, with Clement at his heels, wandering off in the direction of the ballroom, presumably to check on the construction works being done in advance of the evening’s seance. As soon as the study door was shut, Beria began barking out orders, demanding that the Daemon be summoned.
Five minutes later the creature was escorted down from its room by two of Clement’s SS troopers. As Trixie watched it descend the staircase, she was amazed by how sanguine the Daemon seemed. It even bade her a jaunty ‘good afternoon’.
Didn’t the silly thing know it was going to meet the Leader?
Once the Daemon was shown into the study, Beria shut the door and stationed two large and imposing SS soldiers to guard it. As Beria forcefully reminded Dashwood, no one was, in any circumstances, to disturb the Leader whilst he was in conference with the Daemon.
The Dashwood household settled into a sort of hyperactive indolence: everyone ready at an instant to do the Leader’s bidding but not daring to do anything whilst they waited. Trixie decided to return to her embroidery, but as she was climbing her way up the staircase that led to the upper floors of the Manor and her bedroom, she saw Captain Dabrowski dodge back into one of the guest bedrooms on the first floor.
Odd…
But not as odd as what she saw when she peeked through the door’s keyhole. The Captain was kneeling next to the empty fireplace, apparently listening to the wind whistling up the chimney. She turned the doorknob and to her amazement found that the Captain had bolted the door from within. Perplexed and not a little aggrieved by his antics, she rapped on the door. A second later the bolts were pulled and the door was edged open. ‘Yes?’ said the Captain in a decidedly disrespectful and impatient tone.
‘What are you doing in there, Captain?’ Trixie demanded in a loud and imperious voice. ‘I know you have jurisdiction over this house regarding security but what I saw you doing…’
She wasn’t allowed to finish. The Polish Captain reached out, grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her into the room. Trixie gave a squeak of complaint but when she saw the revolver in his hand and noted that it was pointed in her direction she decided that any more squeaking might not be a good idea.
‘Be very quiet, Miss Dashwood, or I will be obliged to silence you.’ He shot the bolts to the door, then pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffed it into the keyhole to deter any more would-be voyeurs.
‘Are you mad? My father…’
‘Miss Dashwood: shut up! I have been presented with an ABBA-sent opportunity to find out what that bastard Heydrich…’
Bastard? Trixie flinched away from the dangerous insult.
‘… is up to. If you are quiet and do what you are told, then I will leave here without harming you. But if you attempt to call out or to raise the alarm then I will silence you… permanently. Make no mistake, these are desperate times and I will not hesitate to sacrifice one life to save millions. Do you understand?’
The look in Dabrowski’s eyes convinced Trixie that he was in earnest. She nodded her agreement.
‘Very well,’ said the Captain, ‘if you will come and sit with me by the fireplace, I think we will hear history being made.’
‘What?’
‘The chimney at this side of the house runs up from your father’s study. By sitting quietly we can hear everything that is said in that room.’
‘You can’t eavesdrop on the Leader,’ Trixie protested.
But they could.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Williams, would you take a seat?’
For an uncertain moment Norma Williams stood by the door of the shadow-draped room. No one had told her who she was to meet, but from the panic that had enveloped the house she guessed it was someone important. She moved towards the desk and took the leather tub chair indicated. Closer now, she could see who her host was.
Oh, sweet Lord.
‘Perhaps I should begin by introducing myself…’
