‘Do you want some sandwiches?’ Agatha asked languidly.
‘No, no. I’ll probably find a pub somewhere.’ He kissed the top of his wife’s head. ‘Enjoy your day, my dear.’
Pearl seemed slightly surprised by his gesture but said nothing.
‘You’re not taking the paper with you, are you?’ Agatha protested. ‘I haven’t looked at it yet.’
‘I haven’t finished reading it.’
‘Really,’ Agatha tutted as he closed the door behind him. ‘That man!’
Down in the basement, Freddie closed and bolted the door. Clearing a space on the table, he spread the News Chronicle flat and switched on the Anglepoise lamp. Just lately he had enjoyed reading about the events connected with the Worthing Wonderland. The whole business gave him a sly satisfaction. Apparently the proprietor, a man with whom he had already crossed swords, had ordered a ferocious wolf as part of the attractions – although why anyone would want to see such an animal was beyond Freddie. The wolf had escaped from its cage en route, and a full-scale hunt had been launched to catch it. From there, things had progressed into something out of a music-hall farce. There were tales of people scouring the countryside in convoys of open lorries, loaded with men carrying guns and rifles. One newspaper had a picture of farm labourers forming a line across a field with a large fishing net. Each man held part of the net in one hand and a pitchfork, a spade or a beater in the other. How Freddie had laughed at that. Quite what would have happened if the animal had suddenly appeared and run towards them, he could only guess, but he was absolutely sure of one thing – not one of those men would have stood their ground. Oh no! They would have headed for the hills.
So up until now, he had regarded the whole incident as a joke. The papers had even made the gypsy girl the centre of attention. All that stuff about ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was typical of the British way of thinking. And as for photographing her next to the animal . . . how childish. How he despised them all. His mother-in-law with all her airs and graces was nothing more than a capricious snob; his wife – his silly, frippery wife – had been a means to an end and nothing more, and the rest of the family were not much better. He had hoped that he would have been back in Germany by now, but the top brass thought he could be more useful here.
Of course, the English had no idea how he really felt. To them he was a displaced person grieving the loss of his beloved country to the tyranny of Nazism. They had no idea that he was the exact opposite. In fact, he’d already sacrificed himself for the Führer. And the day he met Pearl, he had been sharp enough to realise that if he became Pearl’s husband, she would give him the perfect undercover opportunity. Living in a place like Muntham Court, who would suspect him of being anything other than the perfect English gentleman?
His brief had been quite simple; photograph and record anything which might be of interest to the German Luftwaffe should the worst come to the worst. ‘Your English public school education is of great benefit,’ his uncle Reinhard Heydrich had told him. ‘We want you to blend in with the locals and gather as much information as you can. Nobody wants war,’ Uncle Reinhard had assured him, ‘but if the unthinkable happens, we shall really need that intelligence.’
It had been said pleasantly enough, but he knew that his uncle didn’t suffer fools gladly. If he failed . . . well, he couldn’t fail. It was unthinkable.
When he’d first arrived in England, Freddie had toyed with the idea of changing his name. Surely if he sounded more English it would be to his advantage, so he had arranged to drop the ‘von’ in his surname and he was now known as Freddie Herren on official paperwork, a name which sounded quintessentially English.
The English still clung to their belief that Hitler’s Germany posed no threat to them, and of course it didn’t, provided they didn’t interfere with the Führer’s plan, which was clear enough. The world was made up of different races, and each race had its own characteristics and traits, which in turn determined their appearance, creativity, strength and intelligence. That being the case, it followed that it was wrong to mix these up. All Germans were of the Aryan race and therefore, by definition, the master race. Just as a farmer weeds the ground to improve his crop yields, so they had to tend to their race, and anyone regarded as substandard had to go. Aryans were highly intelligent, learned, skilled beyond measure, so Freddie and others like him would help to create a perfect world. Pearl wasn’t of German stock, but she was blonde and attractive to look at, and she was a member of the upper crust, so she suited him well for the time being, though he was quite content to get rid of her when she became of no further use.
Back in the Fatherland, his Uncle Reinhard had been elevated to head of Sicherheitsdienst, the German Security Service. Now he moved in exalted circles, even rubbing shoulders with Hitler himself, and Freddie was well aware that if he was to succeed in this life, it wasn’t what you knew but who you knew that was important.
The newspaper he had been reading at the breakfast table was a broadsheet, so he had folded it in half. When he was ready to read more, he’d turned it over, and that’s when he’d spotted the other article – ‘German Boys Spy Cyclists’? It was about a party of Hitler Youth, boys who had once been members of the Boy Scout movement. In what was called a ‘culturally inspired’ visit to Britain, hosted by Mr Martin, the headmaster of Worthing High School for Boys, the visitors had been cycling all over the southern counties. They had been well behaved and polite, but they had secretly been taking photographs, some of which were in sensitive areas – Shoreham Harbour, Lancing Carriage Works, Portsmouth Dockyard, to name but a few. The paper was now bringing the visit into question, the implication being that the ‘Boy Scouts’ were more like men who had been recruited into a paramilitary organisation. Of course, the accusation was strenuously denied, but that didn’t quell Freddie’s fears. The last thing he wanted was to be put in a position of suspicion himself.
He had been on edge ever since he had spotted Milly and those gypsies on the Downs the other morning. Had they seen him taking photographs in the bushes? Nobody had mentioned it. Was that luck, or did they have something to hide too? Now that he really thought about it, there had been a lorry up there. Could that have been the moment when the so-called missing animal was ‘captured’?
He leaned back in his chair and pondered. If Milly and the other two people with her were up to no good, he was reasonably safe. Would they risk going to prison for what they were doing, by telling the authorities that they’d seen him up there too? The answer had to be ‘no’.
One thing was for certain. He couldn’t carry on doing what he had been doing. A German cyclist would be the object of suspicion now. He would have to telephone his uncle for new instructions. He looked around at the jars of chemicals, dark bag, thermometer and developing tank. They would have to go. It was time to find a new hobby.
In the breakfast room, Agatha was feeling petulant. It was annoying not to have the morning paper in front of her, and now Freddie had squirrelled it away downstairs in the basement, she was sure that he wouldn’t bother to bring it back. Did anyone ever have such an irritating and feckless son-in-law?
Pearl had been so keen to marry him, and of course when her pregnancy became obvious, Agatha understood why. Freddie himself had been a little too casual about the whole thing. She had expected protests and arguments, and had been prepared to threaten to destroy his reputation to get the pair married, but the fellow seemed happy enough to go along with it from the word ‘go’.
She poured herself another cup of tea. Pearl had gone into the kitchen to fetch more toast, so Agatha was left alone with her thoughts.
Right from the start it was obvious that her son-in-law loved Muntham Court. He had spent hours and hours reading up about the history of the place. Until Freddie had told her, Agatha had never realised that the house dated from 1371, when it had been built by Thomas DeMuntham. She hadn’t had a clue, either, that it had been remodelled several times. Apparently, Lord Montague developed it as a hunting seat in 1734, which was when the grounds were first landscaped. ‘Did you know there’s even an ice house in the grounds?’
‘Really?’ Agatha had done her best to appear interested. Her son-in-law was just explaining that the Gothic entrance lodge, the iron gates, and the half-mile carriage drive had been added during Victorian times, when she’d said, ‘You must tell us about your family estate in Germany. My daughter tells me that you have a castle, no less.’
Freddie had puffed out his chest. ‘My home was once used as the winter palace for Prussian kings and kaisers,’ he’d said. ‘I love its history. It dates back to the fifteenth century.’
‘And where exactly is it?’ Agatha asked.
‘In the centre of Berlin, of course, near the Brandenburg Gate.’
Agatha’s breath had caught in her throat. ‘Can you describe it?
‘Well, it has a fabulous portrait gallery, so many rooms I couldn’t count them . . . oh, and it has a dome the size of your St Paul’s in London.’ He’d waved his hand languidly. ‘My grandfather used to tell me that his grandfather said Peter the Great really admired it when he came to stay in 1717.’
Agatha’s eyes had glowed with pleasure. Her daughter was married to a man who owned a palace where kings and princes had stayed. And it was in the very centre of Berlin. How marvellous. She knew Germany no longer had a monarchy, but Berlin was the place where everything was happening right now – it was the place to be. She could just imagine Adolf Hitler greeting vast crowds from a balcony. ‘And when are you taking my daughter to meet your family?’ she’d cooed.
‘Soon,’ Freddie had promised. ‘Soon.’
Pearl returned with another rack of toast. ‘Mrs Edwards has arrived.’
Their new general housekeeper only came three mornings a week. Agatha couldn’t afford more. She looked up at her daughter.
‘Has your husband said any more about when he’s taking you to meet his family?’ she asked tetchily.
‘Oh, Mummy, please don’t go on about it. Anyway, I’m not even sure I want to go to Germany right now.’
‘Don’t be silly. Why ever not?’
‘Surely you know? Adolf Hitler and all that. It all looks a bit scary to me. They say we might even go to war with Germany.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Agatha said stridently. ‘Hitler strikes me as a man who gets the job done. Not like the lily-livered politicians we have in this country.’ She bit angrily into her piece of toast. ‘We could do with more of his ilk in our Parliament.’
Pushing her half-eaten toast to one side, Pearl sighed. She’d lost her appetite. Right now, she felt caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. She had a husband who, when he wasn’t ignoring her, seemed to enjoy putting her down or hurting her, and a mother who wanted to get rid of her. Being married wasn’t supposed to be like this. Being married was supposed to be romantic, beautiful, happy-ever-after. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She was her father’s eldest daughter, and yet her younger sister had everything she wanted. Her eyes wandered to the window and towards the ha-ha across the lawn. She couldn’t see it from here, but the little cottage lay beyond that. Pearl gripped her table napkin into a ball. Even her father’s bastard daughter had more than she did. Why had he left Muntham Court to Milly and the cottage to that girl? Why had he left her nothing? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t bloody fair!
She remembered the letter she’d been given the day the will was read. She’d been so angry she hadn’t given it a thought since then. It was upstairs in her bedroom. Without bothering to excuse herself, Pearl left the room and took the stairs two at a time. All that time ago, she’d shoved the letter to the very back of the drawer. As she pulled it out, she felt a shiver of excitement. Perhaps he’d left her something after all.
Sitting cross-legged on her bed, she tore the envelope open and read her father’s words.
