A Question of Identity

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘Are you going to tell her she’s been vindicated?’

  ‘There’s no point. She was adamant about it anyway.’

  ‘So, despite what I asked, you’re determined to fight her cause?’

  ‘There was an off-chance of corroborating that part and I took it, that’s all. Luckily, it paid off.’

  ‘Have you any other strategies up your sleeve?’

  ‘No, I seem to have reached a dead end.’

  ‘I’d rather you rephrased that! Damn, there’s the doorbell – I’ll have to go. I’ll speak to you later. Love you.’

  ‘Love you,’ she repeated, and started the car.

  Avril was harder to satisfy even than the Drews, and considerably less inhibited in her indignation at being ‘fobbed off’, as she put it.

  ‘Look, Mum, all I can say is that Kevin and Lucy Coombes went to see the hypnotist the same night as us, and both Kevin and Magda were hypnotized. Telepathy was involved – Max had his fingers burned when he challenged it earlier – and this might possibly help to trace Kevin.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a minute!’ Avril declared. ‘It’s a load of nonsense, all that thought transference thing.’

  ‘“More things in heaven and earth . . .”?’ Rona suggested mildly.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re being so gullible!’

  ‘Let’s just say I’m withholding judgement. Now, I really must be on my way.’

  ‘Can’t you stay till Guy gets home? See what he makes of all this?’

  As if his opinion would make any difference, Rona thought. But all she said was, ‘Sorry, I have to go. You can fill him in, and give him my love.’

  Wherever she went, she was leaving disgruntled people in her wake, she thought gloomily as she drove home: the Drews, Max, her mother. Well, she’d done all she could for Magda in the meantime. Now, she must turn her attention to her meeting with Esther Lytton the next day.

  FOURTEEN

  Friday morning, and still no word from Dominic. Over the last few days Lindsey had managed, by a process of wishful thinking, to convince herself that he’d phone. Surely, she reasoned, after seeing her with Jonathan he’d make some attempt to contact her, apologize, try to repair the damage? But he had failed to do so, and the fact that Jonathan was making it only too obvious he was ready to resume their relationship was of little or no comfort.

  Fine! she thought viciously. He could console himself with bloody Carla! And was furious when the papers in front of her blurred suddenly through a veil of tears.

  Rona had dropped Gus off with Max before setting out for Buckford. Animals were likely to be frowned on in an apartment building, and a total of five hours in the car was a lot to ask of him. Max would in any case be home that evening; he could exercise him if Rona was delayed.

  So, she thought, driving along the familiar roads, was this really the end of the rainbow regarding the mysterious photograph? And was there a pot of gold awaiting her? Whatever the outcome, she had firmly resolved to put the whole thing behind her; she’d wasted enough time already on what was probably a wild goose chase, and that, together with Magda and her traumas, had distracted her from her work long enough.

  The college clock was striking eleven as Rona drove past and turned in to Blandford Drive. Perhaps, she thought fancifully, by the time it struck again, she’d have an answer to the mystery of Susie Baines.

  Eton House was an elegant building in rose-coloured brick, its woodwork picked out in white. She parked in a space reserved for visitors and made her way between neat flowerbeds to the front entrance, where she was greeted by a concierge in peaked cap. Having checked that she was expected, he accompanied her to a bank of lifts and pressed the button for the third floor.

  ‘Apartment six,’ he intoned solemnly, and she sailed upwards, trying to avoid her reflection that greeted her on all sides. Why, she wondered irrelevantly, should anyone in a lift require a mirror, let alone three of them? Or were the multiple images designed to ward off claustrophobia?

  The doors glided open and she stepped out to find herself in a square, carpeted hall. Immediately opposite was a picture window, in front of which stood a pedestal bearing an elaborate flower arrangement, and to either side was a polished mahogany door. Two apartments to each floor, seemingly, and number six was to her right.

  Forewarned of her arrival, Miss Lytton opened her door as Rona approached, and came forward to shake her hand. ‘Miss Parish, how do you do? Do please come in.’

  Rona followed her through a spacious hallway to a large and elegant room whose windows gave out on the college grounds, and, as she seated herself, she looked about her with interest. The cream walls were for the most part bare, boasting only a small set of prints, and the cane-backed suite, upholstered in pale blue, looked like an antique. So, more obviously, were a glass-fronted cabinet, a bureau and several spindly-legged chairs. Over by the window a Regency rosewood table was laid for two, which Rona hoped was indicative of lunch.

  Esther Lytton herself was tall and slim, her dark hair was streaked with silver, and, though she was now smiling, her pale blue eyes were gimlet-sharp. It was clear she’d have had no difficulty holding sway over a large number of girls, and Rona was amused to find herself conscious of her own deportment.

  ‘How was the journey?’ Miss Lytton was asking, as she busied herself with a cafetière.

  ‘Plain sailing, once I was through the Marsborough rush hour,’ Rona replied, gratefully accepting a cup of what proved to be excellent coffee. ‘It took two hours and forty minutes, which is about average.’

  ‘I hope you’ll feel it was worthwhile. Catherine tells me you’re a writer,’ she went on quickly, before Rona could follow up the point. ‘Do tell me about your work.’

  Diffidently, Rona did so, suspecting that her hostess was deliberately delaying the discussion that was the reason for her visit. Her biographies were discussed, including the one she was working on, and the nature of the articles she wrote for Chiltern Life.

  ‘I hadn’t connected you with those,’ Esther Lytton confessed, ‘but I must say I enjoyed the ones you did for Buckford’s octocentenary.’ There was a brief pause while she refilled their coffee cups, and then she sat back, folding her hands. ‘Now, revenons à nos moutons, as they say: firstly, I must admit to being curious to learn how you heard of Springfield Lodge and, as you put it, its final term. I’m surprised anyone even remembers it, after all this time.’

  Rona braced herself. ‘Before I begin, would you have any objection if I recorded our conversation? I’m acting on behalf of someone else, and should like her to have as full a record of it as possible.’

  ‘Might I ask who that is?’

  ‘I promise I’ll explain in just a minute.’

  ‘Very well, then I have no objection.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rona took her recorder out of her bag and set it up on the table between them. Then she reached in again and produced the much-travelled photocopy, which she handed over.

  Esther Lytton drew in her breath sharply. ‘My goodness! Where did you find this?’

  ‘It belonged to the mother of a friend, who used to teach there. Trish Cowley?’

  ‘Trish! Is . . . she still alive?’

  ‘No, she died a few months ago. Her daughter found this among her things – she’s the one who asked me to look into it. All we had to go on was the note on the back.’

  Esther flipped it over. ‘Springfield Lodge, July 1951,’ she read slowly.

  ‘Her daughter, Glenda, was curious to know who had been so thoroughly eliminated.’

  ‘And . . . did you find out?’

  ‘Yes; a lady my mother knew was at the school at the time. She identified her as a teacher, Susie Baines. She also said she left in the middle of the last term, but Glenda’s still anxious to know why her photo was obliterated, presumably by her mother.’ She paused. Esther was still staring down at the photograph in her hand. ‘We were hoping you might be able to tell us,’ she ended.
r />   ‘As you’ll appreciate, I was a young child at the time,’ Esther said at last. ‘It was years later that I heard the story from my mother.’

  ‘So there was a story?’

  Esther sighed. ‘Oh yes, there was a story, all right, though they managed to keep it quiet. The school’s connection, that is.’

  She was silent for so long that Rona tried a prompt. ‘Glenda found some diaries Trish had written at the time. She and Susie seemed to be very friendly at first, but then there were entries about Trish being worried, having long talks with her and Susie refusing to listen. We wondered if perhaps she was pregnant, though even in the fifties it seemed an extreme reaction.’

  ‘That was what the girls assumed,’ Esther agreed, ‘and my parents did nothing to deny it. Wrongly, perhaps, but I remember my mother saying bitterly, “It’s not as though she had a reputation to protect, and at least it diverted attention from what would have been a far greater and very public scandal.”’ She laid the photograph on the table, straightened her shoulders, and met Rona’s eye. ‘Tell me – what do you know of 1951?’

  Rona hesitated, thinking back to Trish’s diary. ‘There was the Festival of Britain, wasn’t there? To commemorate the Great Exhibition of 1851?’

  Esther nodded. ‘That’s right, there was; but there was also a darker side to that summer. Tell me, do the names Burgess and Maclean mean anything to you?’

  Rona frowned. ‘I’m . . . not sure.’

  ‘They were part of what came to be known as the Cambridge Spy Ring – a group of young men who had been recruited by a Soviet agent while at university. They were the first to come under suspicion, and defected to Russia in May ’51, after years of passing on sensitive information. But it was always known that several others were involved.’

  Esther met Rona’s eyes. ‘One of whom turned out to be Andrew Daultrey, who worked at the Foreign Office.’ She paused, and, seeing no reaction, added, ‘And who also happened to be the boyfriend of one Susie Baines.’

  Rona gasped. ‘Susie was a spy?’

  Esther shrugged. ‘No doubt she would have been, if she’d had anything to divulge. As it was, she was completely in thrall to Daultrey, and when he was about to be rumbled and fled to Moscow, she went with him. Of course his defection made front-page news, but thankfully the connection with Springfield was never made public.’

  Rona was staring at her incredulously. ‘I’d no idea this had worldwide implications. Did anyone at school know the real reason she left?’

  ‘Well, obviously Trish Cowley did. My mother found her in the staff cloakroom, in a terrible state. It took her a while to discover what was wrong, but eventually the whole story came out.

  ‘That term, Susie had started preaching communism among the staff, but no one took her seriously except Trish, who was her closest friend. Trish knew it emanated from Daultrey, and became more and more concerned about his influence over her, but Susie refused to hear a word against him. To give her her due, she didn’t actually know he was a spy until he was about to flee, but by the time he told her she was in too deep and had no hesitation in going with him. It destroyed her parents, Mother said. They never got over it – and they weren’t alone. The strain of it all brought on my father’s heart attack, and Trish suffered what was then called a nervous breakdown. Both her parents were dead, she’d no other family, and my mother felt responsible for her. She actually lived with us for several months after the school closed and we moved to Farnbridge.’

  Rona digested all that in silence. Then she asked, ‘Did the authorities know about Susie?’

  ‘Oh, yes. As soon as my parents found out they contacted the police. Someone from MI5 came up to interview Trish and Susie’s parents. But it was abundantly clear she’d been no threat in herself and was simply an infatuated young woman who’d allowed herself to be brainwashed by her glamorous lover. And since she wasn’t directly culpable and the school was in the clear, it was agreed not to implicate it.’

  ‘But if the scandal didn’t touch Springfield, why did it have to close?’

  ‘There were other underlying reasons – chiefly my father’s health. He’d been ill the previous year and they’d discussed his retiring then, but, despite Mother’s wishes, he decided to carry on. Then all this blew up, and although it was being contained, he felt the staff had a right to know the truth of it. So he told them, in the strictest confidence, and they backed him to the hilt. They were wonderful – none of them ever breathed a word. But despite managing to avoid the crisis, the stress of it all proved too much, resulting in a full-blown heart attack. He fought hard to find a replacement, as much for the sake of the staff as the girls, but the time frame was too short. No one came forward, and in the end he’d no choice but to close down.’

  She shook her head sadly, remembering. ‘And the most tragic part of it all was that once in Moscow, Daultrey lost interest in Susie. She became desperately homesick, but the Soviet author­ities wouldn’t allow her to leave, and eventually, after a year or so, she . . . committed suicide.’

  Rona’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh, no!’

  Esther glanced down at the photograph. ‘So you see this encapsulates a moment of history. It was taken two months after the defection of Burgess and Maclean, and three months before that of Daultrey.’

  ‘Trish almost collapsed when Glenda came across it a few years ago,’ Rona said reflectively, ‘but she refused point-blank to explain. In fact, Glenda didn’t even know she’d taught at Springfield. It must have affected her whole life.’

  Esther nodded. ‘She suffered from depression for years. Basically, she blamed herself for not having done more to stop Susie – specially after we learned of her suicide, via the British Embassy in Moscow. Mother kept in touch for some time and did what she could, but after Trish married they lost touch.’

  Rona said diffidently, ‘Your father recovered, didn’t he? Did he return to teaching?’

  Esther shook her head. ‘He recovered to a certain degree, yes, but he was advised to avoid stress of any kind, and told categorically that any attempt to run a school again could prove fatal. So he contented himself with marking exam papers and giving the odd lecture. It gave him a toe in educational matters and he felt he was doing something useful. He was delighted when I chose to go in for teaching myself.’

  There was a little click as the tape came to an end.

  ‘Perfect timing!’ Esther said with a smile.

  ‘Thank you for allowing me to record it.’

  ‘And now you’re going to ask if you may write an article for your glossy!’

  Rona smiled sheepishly. ‘If you’d rather I didn’t—’

  But Esther made a dismissive gesture. ‘Go ahead if you’d like to. It makes a good story with plenty of local interest, and it can’t hurt the reputation of either my parents or the school. Added to which it is, after all, a small piece of history.’

  She stood up, brushing the palms of her hands against each other, perhaps symbolically washing them. ‘Now, I think we’ve delved into the past quite enough. Would you care for a sherry before lunch? I feel we’ve both earned one!’

  Rona, though not overfond of sherry and with the long drive home ahead of her, felt it only politic to accept. ‘Just a small one, please – I’m driving!’

  By mutual though unspoken consent, Springfield Lodge wasn’t mentioned during the meal – cold salmon and salad, followed by a selection of cheeses. Instead, Esther turned to Catherine, asking about her later career and her activities since her retirement. ‘I understand she and your father will be marrying shortly?’

  ‘That’s right, yes.’

  ‘How did you all meet?’

  ‘My father was her bank manager, but coincidentally I’d been given her name when I was researching education for the octocentenary article. She was head of St Stephen’s Primary here until relatively recently, and was able to give me a lot of information about it and, of course, the college.’ Rona glanced through the window
at the building in its lovely grounds.

  ‘I’ve not seen her for quite a while,’ Esther commented. ‘We must arrange to meet.’

  It was only as Rona was leaving that the reason for her visit was referred to again.

  ‘It’s strange, thinking back to those times,’ Esther Lytton remarked. ‘It was the height of the Cold War, and Russian spies seemed to be everywhere – the “Reds Under the Beds” syndrome. No doubt spying continues even now, but we hardly ever hear of it.’

  ‘I hope I’ve not revived too many unwelcome memories,’ Rona apologized.

  ‘Not really, though I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to see Trish before she died. For a short while, she was almost part of the family.’

  Remembering Trish’s reaction to the photograph and her refusal to visit Marsborough, Rona doubted she’d have wanted to renew the acquaintance. Her memories had been considerably more traumatic than Esther’s, and she’d spent the rest of her life trying to escape them.

  ‘So how did it go?’ Max asked, as she flopped into a kitchen chair and succumbed to Gus’s enthusiastic welcome.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it!’

  ‘Try me.’ He handed her a glass of her favourite vodka. ‘Mystery solved?’

  ‘And then some.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘In a nutshell, Susie Baines did a flit to Moscow with her boyfriend, who was one of the Cambridge spies.’

  Max stared at her. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘Oh, but I am. Result: years of depression for Trish, heart attack for the headmaster, and closure of the school. And the crowning tragedy was that Susie committed suicide a year later.’

  ‘Ye gods!’

  ‘And before you ask,’ Rona said, with the ghost of a smile, ‘I have Esther’s permission to write an article on it.’

  ‘A scoop indeed! Barnie will be delighted.’ He retrieved his laptop from where he’d dumped it on his return from Farthings, and, placing it on the kitchen table, sat down next to her. ‘What was the chap’s name?’