The Secrets of Latimer House

by Jules Wake

  ‘Unfortunately, that can’t happen.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked, desperate now. She had to make them change their minds.

  Myers narrowed his eyes. ‘He was transferred to a permanent prisoner-of-war camp at oh-seven-hundred this morning.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  August 1943

  Judith

  The following morning, feeling wrung out after a fitful night’s sleep, Judith got up at the same time as Betty and Evelyn, ignoring their sleepy morning conversations to slink into the bathroom to dress without speaking to them, before leaving the house, desperate to escape. Quite what she was running from she couldn’t have said but there was a driving need inside her to get away. If she could have ripped her own skin off, she probably would have done.

  After walking through dew-laden grass, her shoes sopping wet, she found herself in the walled kitchen garden, which ironically reminded her of the Kircheners’ garden, although this was arranged on a far bigger scale. Every row had been organised with ruthless precision and row upon row of greens marched in rank and file. The head gardener obviously ruled his troops with clear-sighted strategy. Every piece of the garden was being used: espaliered fruit trees lined the walls, mounded ridges of potato plants filled one area, trellises of climbing beans and peas took up a section – all of it immaculately tended. Judith turned, movement in her peripheral vision catching her attention. On the far side of the garden a couple of men worked, their khaki uniforms camouflaging them so that they almost blended into the shrubs beyond them. It took her a moment to identify the uniforms and realise that they were prisoners. It seemed odd actually seeing them in person. Listening in to their conversations on a daily basis, she found it hard to imagine them as real people. They were shadowy half-figures who existed only in words.

  Uncharacteristically emboldened by the sudden flare of hatred, she walked forward, following the path that took her through the centre of the garden to where four men worked. For a moment she stood and stared at them, trying to see the monsters below the surface. Disappointingly, they looked like ordinary men and she scowled at them, watching them work. The man nearest, only a few rows away, looked up.

  ‘Guten Morgen,’ he said with a pleasant smile, standing up straight and leaning on his hoe. ‘Schöner Tag.’ He pointed up at the sun in the bright-blue sky, indicating his words, ‘Lovely day.’ Anger and bitterness had a stranglehold on her vocal cords. She could barely bring herself to speak to him. Her hands flexed, claw-like, as if, given free rein, they might scratch his eyes out.

  ‘Entschuldigung. No English.’ He shook his head and smiled at her again, a handsome young man with the sun shining on his dirty-blond hair and bright-blue eyes. He could have been a poster boy for the Hitler Youth. Her lip curled in disgust and in her native language she spat, ‘I speak German.’

  His smile faded as he registered the contempt on her face and he actually took a step backwards.

  Good, she thought viciously, you deserve it. She stared at him for a second longer, enjoying the sensation of intimidating him and making him feel uncomfortable. A surge of power ran through her and she lifted her chin and sneered at him.

  With a toss of her head, she turned on her heel and marched out of the garden feeling a euphoric wave of vindictive satisfaction. See how they liked being treated like dirt! Filthy German soldiers! They were scum.

  Her triumphant bile carried her as far as the grove of trees where she promptly burst into tears. But they deserved it. They fought for Hitler, they represented him. There was no reason for her to feel bad. Instead she resurrected the image of the women waiting to be shot. It firmed up her resolve. She had nothing to feel ashamed about. They had it too cushy here. She hoped the next prison camp would treat them more harshly and that they would suffer. That’s what she wanted, for every last one of them to suffer in the way that her father had, her friends, relatives. Her fingers cramped into spiteful claws again, the tension rising up her arms into the tendons in her neck, and she gloried in the bilious hatred coursing through her veins.

  ‘Judith, I’ve been looking for you.’ Walther hurried over as she arrived at the entrance to the M room. ‘You weren’t at breakfast.’

  ‘I wasn’t hungry,’ she said sullenly.

  ‘You need to eat,’ he said with a quick smile, tucking a strand of hair from her face behind her ear. She flinched and she saw the hurt in his eyes.

  ‘I’ll survive,’ she said, thinking of those starving elsewhere.

  She walked past him into the operations room and sat down at her station, pulling on her headphones and deliberately avoiding looking at him. Why did he have to be so nice to her? So kind and considerate, thoughtful and insightful. It made that overarching sense of self-loathing feel even worse.

  The morning passed painfully slowly as she flicked from channel to channel monitoring the conversations in the cells. All of the current batch of prisoners had been here a few days and had little to say. In their quiet exchanges, she sensed boredom and unease, especially among a few of them due to be transferred the following day. As they talked about what the next camp would be like, she enjoyed their faint apprehension at the thought of the unknown. Her lip curled when one of them said, ‘Wherever we go, I can’t imagine the food will be as good as it’s been here.’

  ‘Unless we’ve been misled and England isn’t suffering from the blockade.’

  ‘I think that’s been largely abandoned now. We suffered such heavy losses in May. More than forty U-boats in that month alone.’

  Judith took some desultory notes, her mouth twisting as she listened to them. They had it far too easy and as she was thinking it, she made the mistake of looking up and saw Walther’s eyes on her, a worried expression dogging his face. The quick, brusque smile she sent him obviously did nothing to alleviate his concern, so she ducked her head and concentrated on the job in hand, as much as she was able to through the seething resentment and anger.

  During the tea break she successfully managed to avoid him by joining a group of women translators who worked in the series of rooms next door. They were responsible for transcribing the notes the M room made into English, which were then passed on to the officers in the house. She knew this because occasionally they would send a transcription back because they couldn’t read a word and they would tease the listeners about their appalling handwriting. As she sipped her tea, pretending to laugh along with the other women, she felt Walther’s keen gaze upon her and knew that there would be a reckoning at some point, but she preferred to delay it for as long as possible.

  ‘Who’s going to the dance on Saturday?’ asked one of the livelier women around the table.

  ‘Not me. I’m on duty,’ groaned another girl.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ said another with genuine excitement. ‘I hope I get myself a proper GI to dance with.’

  ‘Gee whizz, I just hope I get a partner,’ drawled another in a weary voice and the others all laughed. Judith tried to keep the smile pasted on her face to hide her growing sense of disapproval. Didn’t they have anything better to think about? People were dying all over Europe, and all they could think about was a stupid dance. Betty had been beside herself with excitement this morning, talking about Carl and the dance even as she yawned in bed, and then started babbling about going to London to buy herself a new dress. Evelyn, admittedly, had been a little quieter, although she had mentioned that Freddie had asked her to go with him. She hadn’t mentioned what had happened with Peter yesterday, but Judith assumed that perhaps she was being deliberately diplomatic after her outburst about German soldiers last night. That was the sort of thing Evelyn would do, she was so very British.

  Judith’s luck ran out when the afternoon shift finished and she wasn’t able to get out of the door quickly enough. Walther was waiting for her, his brows drawn down in thought. Being a coward all day hadn’t sat well; he was a good man and he deserved better. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  ‘Walther.’ She no
dded and he fell into step beside her.

  ‘Shall we go for a walk?’

  She let out a small mirthless laugh. ‘You know I don’t want to.’

  ‘I do, but sometimes friends are there whether you want them to be or not.’

  She remembered that very first walk she’d taken with him down towards the river when he’d managed to make her feel so much better about being here and the role she was doing. This time she didn’t want to be soothed and have her emotions smoothed out; she wanted to smash and break things.

  The word ‘friends’ halted her stride; it cut a little. They were more than friends, weren’t they? But then, she hadn’t exactly been treating him as such today.

  ‘Walther, I’m really not in the mood.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you are,’ he mused good-naturedly.

  She glared at him for being so calm and reasonable.

  He simply nodded with that faint smile touching his lips. ‘You want to shout and scream and rage, don’t you?’

  Now she glowered at him, the ever-present anger starting to fizz up in her throat, almost a physical thing. She gritted her teeth and growled under her breath.

  ‘Go on. Shout. Scream.’

  She rounded on him, frustrated and cross. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’ His gentle insistence irritated her.

  ‘Because…’

  ‘Because?’

  The lift of his shoulders and the piercing gaze made her throw her head back and as she did it, in a single moment of clarity she knew exactly why not. Because if she started she might not stop. The anger, the anguish, the hideousness, it would all pour out. Her bitterness and spite would spill like bile, poisoning the air around them, and then she couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. Every last German. I hate them and I hate myself for forgetting. For being drawn into this life and forgetting how much people have suffered, how people are suffering. I hate myself.’ Angry tears rolled down her face as she strode furiously across the lawn away from the house. ‘I forget my father. My aunt. My cousins. They’re dead. And thousands of others suffer, and look…’ She waved a hand at the beautiful brick house behind him. ‘This. It’s easy. We live in comfort. People have forgotten the real suffering. They laugh, joke, drink, eat. We don’t deserve to be happy. I don’t deserve to be happy. It’s wrong.’

  Walther didn’t say anything; he let her rant on until she finally ran out of steam and couldn’t contain the flood of tears that punctuated her outburst. He led her to a grassy bank and pulled her down to sit next to him, putting an arm round her as she cried into his chest, her body racked with sobs.

  ‘All that bitterness will sour you if you let it,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said, sounding rather too much like a sulky child.

  ‘Yes, you do. And it isn’t you, I know it isn’t.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because you have a gentleness of spirit. A kindness within. This isn’t you.’

  ‘I want it to be.’

  ‘Do you? Really?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the only way I can cope with hearing those things.’

  ‘You could ask for a transfer.’

  Judith stared at him in surprise. Where would she go? Her instinct rejected the idea straight away. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I won’t let them win.’

  A slow, knowing smile lit up his face.

  She glared at him. ‘I suppose you think you’re clever.’

  ‘Just a little.’

  She punched him lightly on the arm, unused to this side of Walther.

  He sighed. ‘Judith, what we do is important but no one promised it would be easy. But think – if we don’t record this, those people will die without proper notifications, without anyone knowing they are there. We are the record keepers. It is our job to make sure that they are remembered. In the future those sites will be checked, the perpetrators will be brought to book. Every recording we make of those atrocities is kept. They’re sent away to somewhere safe, where they’ll be kept for posterity. There will be a day of reckoning.’ He said it with quiet ferocity and again she realised she’d underestimated that calm; underneath he kept his anger tightly in check but it bubbled there with righteous fury.

  ‘I know you’re right, but it seems wrong to be able to be happy when I know what is happening.’

  ‘Would your father have wanted you to suffer? Do you think the suffering of others condemns us to suffer too? If that were the case, surely they are dying in vain. Don’t we owe it to the memories of our lost ones to live our lives to the very fullest limit we can? To squeeze every drop of happiness from it, to share the joy as far as it will spread, to laugh, cry and celebrate. That is life. The highs and the lows. The good and the evil. If we let ourselves be tainted by that evil, let ourselves be consumed by that bitterness, aren’t we wasting the life that has been blessed upon us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said dully. ‘You sound like a priest or a rabbi.’

  ‘No, I sound like a man who, like you, has lived through horrors and has chosen not to let the suffering dictate the path I choose.’

  She stared at him, the cold burn of resentment still filling her chest. ‘I’m not sure I’m able to do that.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Betty

  It was a morning filled with promise, thought Betty as she popped her lipstick into her handbag and for the fifth time checked that she had all her ration books and the extra clothing coupons from her ma in her purse. Strictly speaking, people weren’t supposed to cut the coupons out of the books but most shops turned a blind eye, even though it was illegal to use someone else’s coupons. Everyone did it.

  ‘Have a good trip,’ said Evelyn. ‘You going in uniform?’

  ‘Yes, so that I can go straight on shift when I get back this afternoon. Gives me plenty of time for shopping instead of worrying about getting back in time.’

  Evelyn smiled. ‘I hope you find the perfect dress.’

  ‘So do I,’ Betty replied. ‘I’m so looking forward to a night out and some dancing.’

  Although Evelyn tried to hide it, Betty saw her wince. She glanced at her face. ‘Fancy a cigarette before I go.’ She noticed the other woman had been smoking more of late.

  ‘Why not?’

  Loath to leave Judith out, Betty turned to her. ‘Fancy coming onto the balcony for a chinwag?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right-ho,’ said Betty, trying to stay cheerful and pretend that Judith was a bit down and not just plain rude. Evelyn had tipped her off as to what was bothering the other woman and she didn’t know what to say. Of course she’d read the reports. She knew what was going on in Germany and Eastern Europe.

  ‘Are you sure? It might…’ What? Take her mind off things? Cheer her up? Betty bit her tongue, realising that she only had platitudes to offer. Sometimes she wished she were better educated, then she might know what to say, like Evelyn, who always had diplomatic words.

  They climbed out onto the roof leaving Judith behind.

  ‘Poor thing,’ whispered Evelyn. ‘She’s not herself. I wish there were something I could do to help.’

  ‘She’s not helping herself though, is she?’ Betty muttered, a little frustrated with the tense silence that had characterised the atmosphere in the attic room for the whole of the morning.

  ‘I think it’s brought a lot of things back that she’d put behind her,’ said Evelyn in her usual even way, which made Betty a little ashamed of herself.

  ‘You’re probably right. I’m being a bit insensitive.’ Betty’s mouth turned town and Evelyn immediately nudged her. ‘Don’t put yourself down, and if I’m honest, I’m inclined to agree, but we’re all different. Some of us are better at hiding our emotions and others wear everything on their sleeves.’ She grinned at Betty who rolled her eyes, knowing the comment was directed at her. ‘And some of us brood. And that’s Judith.�
�� There was a wistful twist to her mouth as she gazed out across the fields, her cigarette held loosely between two fingers. As always, she appeared totally elegant but Betty could tell something wasn’t quite right. Impulsively she asked, ‘And what are you hiding at the moment?’

  Evelyn’s eyes narrowed and she took her time blowing a lazy plume of smoke from her mouth before she said with a wry smile, ‘You don’t miss much, do you, Betty?’

  ‘Not just a pretty face.’ Betty framed her chin in her hands and gave Evelyn a winsome smile which made her laugh.

  ‘And you make me smile when I don’t feel like smiling.’

  ‘Peter?’

  ‘Yes. No prizes for that guess.’

  ‘I thought it was all sorted out with Myers.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘But it’s not now? Are you in trouble?’

  Evelyn’s mouth quivered and when she looked up at Betty, her eyes swam with tears. ‘Don’t be nice to me. I’ll start to blub. He’s gone.’

  ‘Gone. You mean…’ Betty’s mouth opened but she couldn’t think of the words. Instead she pulled Evelyn to her and hugged her. ‘Sorry, I have to be nice to you. Oh, that is bad luck! Seriously rotten. I’m sorry.’

  Evelyn sniffed and pulled out one of her monogrammed lawn handkerchiefs from the pocket of her silk dressing gown. ‘It was inevitable but I … I hadn’t prepared myself. I thought we had more time.’

  ‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

  Evelyn shook her head. ‘No idea. Myers couldn’t or wouldn’t, I’m not sure which, tell me. I’ve no way of finding out.’ She swallowed and blinked furiously. ‘We had a bit of a row the last time I saw him. I never got to apologise and now I feel beastly about it. At least if I knew where he’d gone I could write and say I’m sorry. That’s the worst part, knowing we parted on bad terms.’

  ‘Oh, Evelyn, I am sorry.’