‘Hello, little Tommy,’ the officer said in perfect English. ‘Would you care to join us for a glass of schnapps?’
There was no schnapps but a great deal of interrogation about troop numbers, accompanied by clouts to the head.
The next day he had been taken to some wreck of a train station and put in a closed wagon with more than sixty other men. Packed in tight, they had to endure four days on a slow journey eastwards, with little ventilation, water or food, and nowhere to shit or piss or sleep except where they stood. Nine men died between the Somme and Magdeburg. Braithwaite survived because he had been a miner: he didn’t panic and didn’t gasp for air; something good had come of his time down the pit.
He had joined the army to get away from the mines. Now he found himself at a place called Möhlau, living in a hut with a load of Russians, Frenchmen and a few Englishmen. And he was there to dig up brown coal, lignite, from the Golpa strip mine. Oh, the sodding irony. He had travelled over a thousand miles, been shot at, shouted at, half-starved, kicked and punched – and he was digging coal again.
He worked in the mine for two years, eating bread that a horse would have turned its nose up at and supping the eternal gruel of cabbage and potato. On 11 November 1918, the guards opened the gates. ‘The war is over. Auf wiedersehen, Braithwaite, you can go home.’ Go home? How? He was skin and bones, a five-foot skeleton.
Braithwaite got no further than the nearby village, where he knocked on a door, begged some food in broken German, and collapsed. He awoke to find a young woman in front of him holding a bowl of hot broth, which she began to spoon into his mouth, like a baby. It was the first kindness he had known in all his twenty-one years.
Even by candlelight, Gudrun was neither pretty nor dainty. She had a coarse face and stood at least half a foot taller than Braithwaite. But she was kind and hard-working and uncomplaining and so he stayed, going back to work at the Golpa mine, this time for money. The life was hard, but beer and tobacco were a solace. So was Gudrun; she warmed his bed and accepted his beatings.
Now here, on this roadside in another country, eighteen years later, he missed her and the children. In his head, he had a picture of them. At just thirteen, in his Deutsches Jungvolk uniform, young Hermann already stood taller than his father. And Clara, sweet Clara, had her mother’s sunny nature but was lovelier by far. How had a squat, bow-legged Yorkshireman and a thick-handed peasant woman brought such children into the world? It was for them that he had come back – for them, and for the workers of Germany and England – doing his duty for the Führer’s revolution.
A dark car passed him, then slowed, and stopped.
*
The door closed on Hartmut Dorfen, and Wilde led the way back into the sitting room. ‘What was all that about, Lydia?’
‘I was hoping you might tell me, Tom.’
‘He doesn’t give much away. Not intentionally, anyway.’
‘Was he overbearing?’
‘A little too eager to please. I didn’t find him particularly convincing.’ Wilde thought about Dorfen’s analysis of Germany’s intentions. He was either naive or being deliberately obtuse in suggesting Hitler wished Britain no harm. At the very least it was an analysis a little too favourable to a regime he purported to scorn.
‘I know some people can find him a bit high-handed, that’s all.’
Wilde didn’t think it was all, not for a minute. But he didn’t pick her up on it. ‘Tell me about him.’
‘As he said, we met at the college’s May Ball. We were shipped in from Girton because they were short of girls. That’s how it was put to us! Not very flattering, but if it was meant as an insult we didn’t really care because it suited us very well. Clever, good-looking men, smart clothes and lots of champagne.’
‘We?’
‘Me, Nancy and Margot. With a chaperone, of course, but we soon lost her. None of us had ever met a man like Hart Dorfen before. We were only used to English boys, all frightfully jolly and well brought up. Hart was a world away from them – he was dangerous and killingly handsome. We found ways to escape college and managed to spend all that June with him. He thought he could have us all. But he couldn’t – not me anyway. We all flirted with him outrageously, but in my case that was all. Nancy and Margot were another matter. There was an intense rivalry between them. Margot was obsessed with him, I’m afraid. But then she took everything so damned seriously.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Stay here.’ Lydia left the room, returning a minute later with a photograph that she handed to Wilde. ‘That’s us outside the college gate on Trumpington Street,’ she said. ‘Margot Langley, Nancy Hereward, Hart and me.’
‘Hart Dorfen and the three musketeers.’
‘The three Furies, more like.’
‘Well, you all look very happy.’
‘Appearances can be deceptive.’ She sighed, but it was more like a groan. ‘Honestly, Tom – bloody Cambridge. Bloody Girton.’
‘I’ve never heard you like this before.’
Lydia threw herself onto the sofa. ‘It cossets you in a womb of cleverness, only to deliver you into a world of brutal stupidity. I just want to go to bed and sleep until 1937. I’ve really had enough of this year. Too much death and destruction.’
Wilde went over to the fireplace and gave the coals a poke. He wanted to know more about Hartmut Dorfen. ‘Listen, Lydia, tell me everything. This thing with you, your friends and Dorfen, it must have all happened four or five years before I arrived. Tell me about that summer.’
Lydia threw her head back and looked at the ceiling. ‘I’ll tell you about one particular day,’ she said. ‘One glorious sunny Cambridge day when we all took a punt down the Cam towards Grantchester. Hart, me, Nancy, Margot and two King’s boys, whose names escape me and who aren’t important to the story anyway. We had a picnic . . .’ she trailed off.
‘Three boys, three girls.’
She nodded. ‘I think the whole university was on the river or in the meadow that day. We all thought we were Virginia Woolf or Byron, I think. At first it was perfect. But it didn’t end that way. We had wine and beer with us, a portable gramophone and some jazz recordings. The two English boys wore rowing caps and cricket shirts. We girls had changed into summery dresses at Nancy’s room in the master’s lodge. Hart, of course, was dressed in boater and striped blazer.’
‘I can picture you.’
‘Well, you know Grantchester Meadow on a hot, hazy day, Tom. Too much wine, too much birdsong, the sound of the green water drifting by. Your perception changes and you forget yourself. We moored in the pool by the mill and danced on the grass. We had cucumber sandwiches and cold slices of pork pie and champagne. Far too much champagne. We laughed and recited poetry. Hart declaimed Goethe and Schiller and Shakespeare sonnets, and then we dozed. Day turned into evening – a balmy evening – and we woke again. We played jazz on the gramophone and danced some more, then made a little campfire.’
‘It sounds idyllic.’
‘Yes. But there was tension, too. Hart and Margot had been seeing each other ever since the May Ball, and Nancy didn’t like it.’
‘Seeing? As in?’
‘Of course. We might have been chaperoned, but we certainly weren’t all virgins. Don’t forget, Margot had already been presented at court before coming up to Girton. At first I was rather envious of her: I thought she and Hart had found true love. Margot was much more beautiful than Nancy and me so obviously I thought she would be the one to get him. But as the weeks wore on, she began to become insanely jealous. If he didn’t send her a note every day or was five minutes late for a meeting, she was a wreck.’
‘The day of the picnic – something happened?’
Lydia nodded. Even now the memory made her shudder.
‘Nancy began to undress. It wasn’t so shocking because it was a dark night, but you could see in the firelight that she was naked. “Come on, into the water,” she said. “Fainthearts have to walk back to Cambridge
.” We all began to throw off our clothes and dived in – all save Margot. She tried to cling on to Hart, but he was having none of it. He stripped and dived in with the rest of us. There was a great deal of splashing about and horseplay in the water. Margot sat by the fire, sullen and sulky.
‘Eventually I clambered out and grabbed a towel, as did the two King’s boys. But there was no sign of Hart or Nancy. We didn’t notice at first, but then we began to get worried. After all, we were a bit tipsy and I was worried they might have got tangled in the weed. We called softly, then the two boys jumped back in and tried to find them. I wandered around the bank, calling as I went. And then I heard a low moan and saw wet skin and found them, in flagrante. A tangle of limbs, sliding on a bed of grass and leaves. They hadn’t seen me, so I turned back – and came face to face with Margot. She let out an unearthly scream of anguish, then turned and ran.’
‘Well, clearly, that did for her relationship with Hart.’
Lydia shook her head. ‘It was worse than that. We couldn’t find her. We guessed that she had run back to Cambridge, so all we could do was chase after her. Within five minutes of Hart and Nancy reappearing, we had piled everything on the punt and set off for home. Halfway between Grantchester and Cambridge, we came across a body lying in the water, hair floating around.’ Lydia shuddered.
‘But you saved her?’
‘Of course. She coughed up lots of water and we took her to Addenbrooke’s, where she spent the night. If you ask me now, I don’t even believe she was ever in any danger. I think she walked into the water and arranged herself like Ophelia just before we arrived. But at the time, we thought she was dead. It was extremely frightening.’
‘What happened to your friendship?’
Lydia sighed. ‘That was the end of the triumvirate. Margot left college, went off to marry some chinless wonder she’d met at a debs’ ball. And then she did a runner. So there you have it.’
‘What of Nancy and Dorfen?’
‘It went nowhere. Actually, I think Nancy just did it to get one over Margot. I don’t think Nancy was even very keen on him.’
‘And Dorfen?’
Lydia smiled, but it was a brave smile. ‘Seeing him here has brought it all up again, that’s all. And now that Nancy and the Langleys are dead, I simply can’t bear even to think about such things.’ She sat back on the sofa, and hugged her arms around her knees. ‘Hart and Margot are quite alike in some ways – intense, a little aloof, even chilly. But there is more to him than that. He can be funny and warm one moment, like ice the next. Didn’t you notice that in him?’
‘No.’
‘But you didn’t see him as we did. We always knew there was something of the cruel northern wastes about him, which only added to his appeal. He was like some bloody Norseman, come with axe and longsword to add spice to our dull little college lives. And at Girton, of course, we were all like a herd of penned-in peahens – and then this gorgeous Nordic peacock arrives.’
‘You’re mixing your metaphors.’
‘Sod it, I don’t care. And I really don’t like it when you correct my English! Correcting English is my job, not yours.’
Wilde smiled. She was beginning to recover. ‘Did you tell Dorfen that we think Margot is in Munich?’
‘No – why? I didn’t mention Margot at all.’
‘I think he knows she’s there.’
‘What?’
‘I said she was in Germany and that we wanted to contact her about her parents’ death in case she hadn’t heard. He said she would probably read about it in the Munich papers. But why say Munich? I hadn’t mentioned it.’
‘Well, he comes from Munich, that’s why.’
‘But why assume Margot’s there? Germany is a big place.’ The answer seemed obvious to Wilde. He knew she was there because he was the reason she had bolted from her marriage. So why hadn’t he said so?
‘Oh God, Tom, I don’t know.’
‘There was something else. Did you notice his wristwatch? I spotted it when he reached up to light his cigarette. It’s new and it looks rather cheap.’
‘Tom, you have many defects but I had never taken you for a snob.’
‘It was an Ingersoll – I had one like it a few years back. Cost about ten shillings. Everything else about Hartmut Dorfen oozed money. The lowliest waiter will tell you that expensive shoes and cheap watches don’t add up.’
‘You’re losing me.’
Should he tell her this? ‘Look . . . we found a wristwatch in the Langleys’ house. A very expensive Patek Philippe.’
The horror in Lydia’s eyes was clear. ‘You don’t think, Tom . . . Oh please God, no.’
Wilde tried to smile. ‘I don’t know, Lydia. I really don’t know. For all I know the Patek belonged to Cecil Langley. Perhaps I’m just imagining things.’ Perhaps I just didn’t like your German friend.
Lydia read his mind. ‘I could see you didn’t like him but, good God, why would Hart have killed Mr and Mrs Langley? Please, I’ve had enough of these horrors.’ She got to her feet, and a scrap of paper fell to the floor. ‘Oh!’ She bent to pick it up. ‘I wanted to show you this.’ She handed it to him. ‘I found it in Braithwaite’s room. What do you think it means?’
Wilde studied it. ‘It looks like a Mayfair telephone number. What on earth would Braithwaite be doing with that?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Carr and Brandham must be names. I know it’s late, but shall we call and see who answers?’
They went to the hall and got a connection within a minute. Wilde put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘It’s the Dorchester!’
‘Are you sure?’ Lydia looked incredulous. ‘Ask for those names.’
Wilde asked for Mr Carr, but was told that no one of that name was in residence; he tried Brandham and got the same result. He thanked the concierge and rang off. ‘Why would Braithwaite be calling the Dorchester? And who are Carr and Brandham H?’
‘Harry Brandham, Henrietta Brandham? And why is the Dorchester number written in ink and the names in pencil?’
‘Because they were written at different times? Perhaps someone had given him the Dorchester number – and then at a later date he had to call a contact there to get the names which he scrawled in pencil.’ Suddenly Wilde went cold. ‘Lydia, this isn’t two names – it’s one name and an address. It’s Sir Vyvyan Carr. He lives at Brandham Hall, just ten miles from here.’
‘The general? Of course . . .’
‘He’s very close to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. An outspoken enemy of Bolshevism. Now what, Lydia, would Mr Braithwaite want with him?’
*
The telephone number in the directory for Brandham Hall was dead, so Wilde called the local police. ‘Sir Vyvyan and Lady Carr spend a great deal of their time in Knightsbridge,’ the desk sergeant had said. ‘But we’ll check the Hall over and I’ll get back to you.’
In retrospect Wilde thought he had not explained his concerns well. An unemployed miner named Leslie Braithwaite had left a scrap of paper in Lydia Morris’s house with a name and the number of the Dorchester Hotel on it. It hardly made sense. And yet to Wilde it was significant. Three people were dead: three people well known to Lydia. The man Braithwaite was a criminal with a vicious streak. And now Sir Vyvyan Carr wasn’t answering their calls.
After half an hour, and with no return call from the police, Wilde decided to take a look for himself. He suggested Lydia might be better off staying at home in case the police called back.
‘No, Tom, I’m coming with you.’
*
The night had clouded over and there was a damp wintry chill. As they hit the road west out of Cambridge, a hail shower came on, beating against Wilde’s goggles and lower face. Lydia had hurriedly thrown on her old corduroys, two pullovers, thick woollen gloves, scarf and duffle coat for the ride, and now she sat with her arms clasped tight round his waist, nestling her face into his back, sheltering against the foul weather.
> Wilde could feel that the road was becoming slick; the Rudge’s tyres were losing traction and he had to reduce speed and corner at a crawl. In twenty minutes, they arrived at the village of Brandham. He had been here before, one summer’s day. There was good birdwatching, he had been told. He had spent an afternoon listening to the lark, and following its bold rise into the warm air over a field of corn. He recalled having seen the entrance drive to Brandham Hall off a lane on the far side of the village.
Close to midnight. There were no lights save the motorbike’s headlamp, cutting a beam through the sleet. Outside the old Hall, a car was parked on the circular gravel drive. Had the police been on their rounds yet? If Sir Vyvyan had already been woken by the police on their rounds, he would not be best pleased to be roused from his bed again.
The old house was in darkness. Wilde drew to a halt and left the engine running. ‘We’ll wake someone. A housekeeper or chauffeur. There must be some staff here.’
She slid from the bike. ‘Only one way to find out.’
The doorbell was like a small church bell, suspended from a wrought-iron bracket, with a knotted rope to swing the clapper. She gave it a gentle tug. When there was no response and no sign of movement within the house, she clanged it hard. Still no one came.
Wilde glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Midnight.’
‘The countryside shuts down at ten p.m., Tom.’
‘Let’s look around.’ He switched off the engine, pulled the electric torch from the deep pocket of his trenchcoat and pressed the switch. It splayed a dull yellow glow around the front of the broad-faced house. ‘Damn, the batteries are going.’
‘This feels very much like trespass. If the police do turn up on their rounds they’ll think we’re housebreakers.’
‘Burglars,’ Wilde said. ‘Housebreakers come by day, burglars by night.’
‘I’m glad Harrow taught you something.’
*
Their search was short and grim. Within two minutes, they found the defiled body of General Sir Vyvyan Carr in an open-sided barn at the south side of the house. He was lying flat on his back, his body bloodstreaked. A sledgehammer and a rusty sickle had been laid out along his corpse. The haft of the hammer ran from his torso up along the line of his throat and the solid iron head lay wide across his face, like the arms of a crucifix. The sickle lay lower down his body, curved from his belly up across his heart. The emblem of the communist revolution in Russia, the hammer of the industrial workers and the sickle of the rural peasantry, united in the class struggle; here it stood for murder and hatred.
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