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
