The Eden Inheritance

by Janet Tanner

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

  www.panmacmillan.co.uk/bello

  Contents

  Janet Tanner

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  PART TWO

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Janet Tanner

  The Eden Inheritance

  Janet Tanner is a prolific and well-loved author and has twice been shortlisted for RNA awards. Many of her novels are multi-generational sagas, and some – in particular the Hillsbridge Quartet – are based on her own working class background in a Somerset mining community. More recently, she has been writing historical and well-received Gothic novels for Severn House – a reviewer for Booklist, a trade publication in the United States, calls her “ a master of the Gothic genre”.

  Besides publication in the UK and US, Janet’s books have also been translated into dozens of languages and published all over the world. Before turning to novels she was a prolific writer of short stories and serials, with hundreds of stories appearing in various magazines and publications worldwide.

  Janet Tanner lives in Radstock, Somerset.

  My grateful thanks to Elizabeth Buchan, who shared with me her knowledge of the Resistance; and to Kay Crooke, who helped me with research into the Charente region – and tasted some cognac at the same time!

  But most especially to Gerry Gowan, whose experiences whilst flying as a professional pilot in the Caribbean gave me the original idea, and who not only helped me think of the book’s title, answered my constant flow of questions without a word of complaint, and read the finished manuscript for me, but also risked life and limb to teach me to fly!

  Windward Islands, 1956

  ‘LILLI! LILLI – COME here a moment! I want to speak to you.’ The little girl, who had been trying to sneak unnoticed into the villa, paused like a gazelle in flight, long dark hair inherited from her South American mother flying in the stiff afternoon breeze blowing in off the Caribbean, black-brown eyes huge and round in her small olive-skinned face. The breeze was scented now by frangipani and pineapple, bougainvillaea and nutmeg, all the exotic perfumes of the island mixed together into one intoxicating cocktail, but Lilli scarcely noticed. It was, to her, simply the way things were, a small part of her world. She had known nothing else and though in years to come those perfumes would always evoke for her, more powerfully than any photograph ever could, a bittersweet nostalgic memory of the island where she had been born and raised, for the moment she simply took them for granted.

  Besides, Lilli had more important things on her mind. Mainly, how she would explain herself to her father; why she had been playing with Josie again when he had strictly forbidden it. Josie was her friend, at eight just a year older than Lilli herself. When they were little, Josie’s mother, Martha, had been a maid at the villa and she had brought Josie with her so that the two little girls could amuse one another while she worked. But that had been in the days before Lilli’s own mother had gone away.

  Lilli’s small face clouded as the memories came rushing in: Mama, with her long dark hair, so very like Lilli’s own, her jangling bracelets and her scarlet-tipped nails; Mama with her irrepressible gaiety and the aura of glamour which gave her a quality of elusive desirability as if she were a film star or a royal princess, not an ordinary mortal at all. Lilli had adored her just as she had adored Jorge, her father’s business partner, who had often been on the island in those days and with whom, in memory, her mother was inextricably linked; and she knew without question that her father had adored her too. When Mama had said it was permissible for her to play with Josie, it had been.

  ‘Lilli needs company of her own age,’ she had said, and Daddy had smiled and concurred.

  But now things were different. One terrible night Lilli’s safe little world had turned upside down in a scarlet-tainted maelstrom of horror and grief which she tried never to think about but which returned in nightmares to haunt her.

  Mama was dead, Patsy, Lilli’s nurse, had told her, and even though she had glimpsed Mama that night lying on the floor, she could scarcely take in the finality of it. Lilli had once seen the corpse of a turtle on the beach and its horrible sprawled stillness and the foul smell that emanated from it had frightened and disgusted her. Mama couldn’t be like the turtle, surely? But Patsy would say little by way of explanation and Daddy said nothing at all. He had shut himself away for weeks, only to emerge gaunter, greyer and more morose.

  Jorge had disappeared from her life too – he was looking after their business enterprises elsewhere, Daddy had said, but he seemed as reluctant to talk about Jorge as he was to talk about Mama.

  From that day on, it seemed to Lilli, Daddy had changed. There was a remoteness about him now that made him quite unapproachable and a sternness which, although it was not new, was now not tempered by Mama’s softness and sense of fun.

  ‘It’s not right for you to play with the locals now, Lilli,’ he had informed her one day. ‘You are too big for that sort of nonsense.’

  ‘But Daddy …’

  ‘Josie is the daughter of one of the maids. I don’t want you having any more to do with her.’

  ‘Then who will I play with?’

  ‘You have your dolls, you have your books, you have everything you need to keep you entertained. Far more than Josie or any of the other locals have.’

  But not so much fun, Lilli had thought, though even she had not dared to say it.

  ‘Soon you will be at school in Caracas. Then you will meet other girls like yourself. You will make plenty of friends then – suitable ones.’

  But Lilli was not quite the obedient child her father thought her. Within her sunny nature was a streak of rebelliousness and a liking for getting her own way. Whenever she could escape without being noticed, and sometimes, it has to be said, with Patsy’s connivance, she would run away across the beautifully manicured lawns which surrounded the villa to the far side of the island where Josie lived in the shanty town of tin huts and corrugated-iron shacks which housed the black servants – the maids, the cooks and the labourers. There she whiled away the long hot days of summer playing all the games that a child could not play alone. When the rains came and the river flowed down its narrow bed they would chase one another from stepping stone to stepping stone; when it was hot and dry they hid in the thick croton hedges, spying on those who passed by and giggling at their own daring. They built their own little tree house
with some old curtains Lilli had begged from the housekeeper, they scavenged for bits of broken pottery to serve as plates, and then pretended to entertain Lilli’s favourite doll, Rosita, with her china face and go-to-sleep eyes, and Josie’s home-made rag doll, Maisie. They searched for eggs which the scraggly hens laid in the hedges around the dusty compound when they got broody, they drank milk, warm from the goats, and ate fresh pineapple and mango and bananas. Sometimes Lilli was missing from the villa for hours but Daddy did not seem to notice. He was always engrossed in his business concerns and occupied with the strangers who came and went. Lilli did not know what Daddy’s business was and she did not ask. She simply accepted that he was very rich and very busy: the trappings of wealth she took as much for granted as she did the delights of the island, the busyness simply meant she was free to do as she liked.

  Usually Lilli could creep back into the villa without Daddy ever knowing she had been gone at all. Today was the exception. As Lilli skirted the big salon she heard him calling to her in the cultured yet guttural accents of the German homeland he had not seen for more than a decade, and she stopped guiltily, knowing that now he had seen her there was no escape.

  The salon, which ran the full depth of the villa, was totally open along the side which fronted the lawns. At this point room became veranda, floor became patio, though a trellis over which bougainvillaea twined and rioted formed a roof of sorts to provide shelter from the sun. Lilli walked in between the slatted wooden panels which could, if so desired, be closed to divide the inside of the villa from the outside, a long-legged child in vermilion shorts and a vermilion-and-white spotted suntop, bare feet thrust into chunky-soled flipflops.

  ‘Where have you been, Lilli? Patsy has been looking everywhere for you.’

  Lilli bit her lip, though she suspected Patsy had only pretended to look for her – a really thorough search and she would have known very well where Lilli could be found.

  ‘I’m sorry, Daddy …’ She paused, expecting him to question her further and wondering how she could avoid telling him the whole truth. But instead he only sighed, a strange dry explosion that was halfway to being a laugh, except that Daddy never really laughed.

  ‘Oh Lilli, Lilli, what shall I do with you?’

  But he did not sound angry, merely regretful.

  Lilli scuffed the toe of her flipflop into the rim of one of the marble tiles which covered the floor.

  ‘I don’t know, Daddy.’

  ‘No, neither do I. Still, never mind that now. Come over here.’

  He held out his hand to her, a tall man in a royal-blue shirt and cream slacks, his bearing aristocratic and erect in spite of the slight limp which was apparent when he walked. Otto Brandt was fiftysix years old but it would have been difficult to put an age to him. His hair was prematurely snow white, his skin tanned to a rich brown by the Caribbean sun, his eyes the startling clear blue of the true Aryan. If one noticed only that well-toned body Otto could have passed for a man twenty years younger; look into the eyes and the wealth of experience and life lived made him much older.

  Lilli, of course, cared nothing for her father’s age. He was, quite simply, Daddy, stern, sometimes unapproachable, yet with a surprising capacity for tenderness where she was concerned. In the last resort Lilli knew, without acknowledging it, that she could wind him around her little finger.

  This, however, she judged, was not the time to try. Obediently she went into the salon.

  ‘What is it, Daddy?’

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  After the brightness of the sunshine outside it was dim in the salon; Lilli, her eyes not yet accustomed to the change in the light, could not read the expression on his face. But even if she had been able to see his features clearly it did not necessarily mean she could have guessed at his mood. Otto Brandt was nothing if not enigmatic.

  He put an arm around her shoulders now, leading her to a chaise, covered in soft green velvet, which might have been more at home in the drawing room of a French château or an English castle than here in this luxurious but undeniably alfresco salon.

  ‘I have to go away for a little while, Lilli.’

  ‘Oh?’ She was sorry, but not surprised. For as long as she could remember Daddy had gone away on business trips at fairly regular intervals. ‘Where are you going?’

  He smiled and tapped her small straight nose.

  ‘That’s not something you need to know. I should only be gone for a few weeks, but one never knows. It might be longer. Whichever, I want you to promise to be a good girl for me while I am away.’

  ‘Of course, Daddy!’ But already she was thinking of the glorious days she would be able to enjoy with Josie. ‘You’ll be back before I have to go away to school, though, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Yes, I am sure I shall. I just wanted to tell you, Lilli, that … your daddy loves you very much.’

  Something in the way he said it frightened her suddenly; a prickle of intense cold ran down her sun-warmed spine.

  ‘I know that, Daddy.’

  ‘Of course you do. And something else. Supposing, just supposing, something should happen to me, you know that you are well provided for.’

  The prickle became worse, fingers of burning ice.

  ‘What do you mean, Daddy? If something should happen to you?’

  He took her hand, his long fingers closing over her small brown ones.

  ‘I’m not planning on leaving you for a long time yet, Lilli, but one never knows. This is a very uncertain world. It is best to be prepared.’

  Lilli had begun to tremble violently. Mama had gone away. Jorge had gone away. She could not bear it if Daddy went away too. Oh please! I’ll never again wish I could be free to play with Josie all the time just as long as Daddy doesn’t go away too! Lilli prayed.

  ‘Daddy …’

  Daddy smiled, the wide curve of his well-shaped mouth making him look young and handsome again.

  ‘Don’t look so frightened, little one. I didn’t mean to scare you. But I want you to understand that this will one day all be yours. You will want for nothing.’

  With a wide sweep of his hand he indicated the salon and its contents. Lilli’s face puckered.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you do. You take it all for granted, don’t you? You have no idea of the value of the treasures in this room. You see the silver candlesticks and the bronze statuette of Ceres, goddess of the harvest, and the pretty little Louis XIV clock? Together they are probably worth a king’s ransom. I know they mean nothing to you now but one day you will love them as I do. And if hard times should ever come …’

  His voice tailed away. Now, with her eyes growing more accustomed to the dim tight, Lilli could see just how serious was the expression on his handsome face, marred only by a long silver scar which ran from the corner of one eye down his cheek and which now seemed to stand out more vividly than ever.

  ‘I do like them, Daddy,’ she said, eager suddenly to please him. She looked around, trying to see the treasures through his eyes but aware only of items she had grown up with but never been allowed to touch. Then her glance lighted on just one of them and she brightened. ‘I like the picture – you know I do.’

  ‘The picture …’ He followed her gaze. ‘Ah, you mean the triptych. Yes, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

  He got up, taking her hand and leading her across the marble-tiled floor to where the triptych hung. Intricately painted, the three panels arranged so that the softly diffused light caught the rich colours and made them glow, the triptych portrayed the life and death at the stake of Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. Lilli looked up at it. She did like the picture – or triptych as Daddy called it. It fascinated her, although it also frightened her a little.

  ‘Supposing I say that it is yours now, Lilli – would that make you feel better?’

  ‘Mine!’

  ‘Yes. It must stay where it is, of course, but it can be Lilli’s triptych. No
t many little girls of your age own something so beautiful or so precious. Doesn’t that make you feel special?’

  Lilli gazed up at the triptych, awed, and suddenly yes, she did feel better.

  Not because she was concerned with its value or even with its artistic worth, for such things were beyond her, but because somehow she knew in that moment that the triptych was going to play a very important part in her life. Mysteriously it was almost as if the future had reached out and touched her with a teasing finger, bestowing on her all the glory and the suffering portrayed in the picture. It did not occur to her then, or for many years to come, to wonder where the treasures had come from or what story they might have to tell. Lilli’s fingers curled trustingly into her father’s.

  ‘Thank you, Daddy,’ she said.

  PART ONE

  Holocaust

  Chapter One

  Bristol, 1971

  THE TWIN-ENGINED Piper Navajo touched down smoothly, wheels kissing runway with scarcely a judder, and slowed, to turn on to the taxiway.

  In the pilot’s seat Guy de Savigny let go the controls, steering with the rudder pedals as he attended to the shut-down preliminaries whilst the aircraft was still rolling. The hour was late; the runway markers and the lights blazing out of the control tower and airport buildings, to which he was heading, were the only sparks of illumination in the velvet darkness now that the rolling hills hid the neon glow of the city from his view. Guy manoeuvred the aircraft on to the apron and parked in one of the unloading bays. Now that he had landed he felt suddenly tired. Whilst flying the need for complete concentration kept him on his toes, and with no first officer in the co-pilot’s seat the workload was high enough to necessitate his remaining alert throughout the whole flight. There had been times when Guy, who suffered from occasional migraines, had brought the plane in and not even noticed the needles of white-hot fire in his temples until the shut-down checks were completed, so total was the concentration demanded of him. But that was the way he liked it. It was the reason he had remained a freelance commercial pilot instead of moving on, as many of his friends had done, to the big airlines. There might be prestige in being a captain or first officer with BOAC or British Caledonian. The logbooks of those who chose to go with the big boys might read like a world gazetteer. But how much did they see of their exotic destinations? One hotel room is very like another, however luxurious, and Guy felt, with a slight edge of scorn, that the way they earned their fat salaries could hardly be described as flying – not flying as he knew it. He would go crazy, he thought, if he had to rely on a computer to do all his work for him, and the very idea of sitting in a cockpit for up to eight hours with nothing more stimulating than the Telegraph crossword to occupy his mind made him shudder. As for the money, that was scarcely a consideration. Guy was not exactly wealthy yet, but he would be one day. As heir to the de Savigny estates in Charente, and all that entailed, a nest egg and a pension were the last things on his mind.