Hitler's Girls (17 page)

I am enjoying my retirement, and, I must own, my second cup of coffee of the morning, while awaiting the results of our General Election.

Will the same Government, thought satisfactory by some, considered as betrayers of the Welfare State by others, be returned to power? Or have we seen the last of them, to find ourselves once more in uncharted, and possibly menacing, waters?

Speculation is of course pointless. My friend Jennifer Devant, who has just returned from a long and lucrative spell in Washington, says:

“If Peter Müller hadn’t been killed, I do believe he would have wriggled free in France, and somehow have brought together his ‘pan-European’ movement, as he had planned. We have reason to thank the scorpion, and of course yourself,” she adds. “How on earth did you persuade the British police to lay off Melissa Stirling and go for Muller. Too late, of course, as usual.”

“Simple, Dame Jennifer,” I replied. “I watched the video of the attack on poor Monica very thoroughly.”

“Indeed, we all did,” came the rejoinder, as I had known it would.

“The hand which held the knife that killed Monica,” I said, “was attached to an arm, would you not say?”

“My dear Baroness Hastie, have you taken leave of your senses? Obviously the hand was attached to an arm.”

“Good. I am glad you agree. The arm was white, wasn’t it?”

“Well, yes.”

“Do not imagine that I stray into political territory inhabited by Herr Muller and his friends,” I said. “I would simply like to point out that every single member of the group which came down the road and fell on poor Monica was tattooed on practically every inch of the body, certainly on the arms.”

“So?” said Jennifer Devant for the first time in her life, looking suitably mystified.

“So Peter Miller, masquerading as the neighbourhood estate agent, glimpsed one moment at the end of the road, was next in the group—every one of whom was dependent on him for feeding a carefully nurtured drug habit—and holding the knife brought to the site for the purpose of killing Monica after finding the secret code number.”

“Peter Miller,” said Jennifer Devant. “You know, I did think in that video that the arm and hand were more like the limb of a man than a woman’s could be.”

“You didn’t say so at the time,” I said. “Nor was this noted by our valiant investigative reporter James Graham, despite the many times, I have no doubt, he must have watched the video, to feed his passion for an underage girl.”

“Yes, yes,” said Jennifer quickly. She does not appear to like my comments on the subject of the marriage of Jim Graham and Melissa Stirling. “But they’re happy now, Jean, aren’t they?”

I informed my friend that I had little information on the couple. They had left Banesbury Road some years back, and no-one appeared to know their whereabouts, despite rumours they had settled in Argentina or Brazil.

“Dear Mel,” said Jennifer Devant, extracting a small black cheroot from her bag and lighting up.

“Melissa’s manners have not improved,” I said sharply. “My last Christmas card, hand-painted I have to say, went unacknowledged. A goddaughter has responsibilities towards her godmother, after a certain age.”

“But where did you send it, Jean?” Jennifer looks at me through a cloud of devilish black smoke as she so often does, this time to the accompaniment of cheering from the TV on the
occasion of another far-right candidate sweeping in as Member for Parliament.

I rose to go and rinse my coffee cup, an action which I find is lamentably seldom performed in the grand country houses I still visit as retired President of the Scottish National Trust. “I send the cards every Christmas, care of Artemis Lady Ray, at Amesbury House,” I told Jennifer. “There is no excuse whatsoever in Mel’s failure to reply.”

“Lady Ray?” Jennifer looks astonished. “Surely, Jean, she would hardly know where the girl has gone?”

It is true, as I reflected later, that I omitted to inform the world-famous barrister of the gift to me made by Clemency Wilsford’s sister of the journals kept by the misguided girl during her years in Berlin, then at St Ronan’s.

“I disagree,” I said, aware of sounding pompous. “Mel is Lady Ray’s great-niece after all.”

“Are you saying, then, that blood is thicker than water?” counters Dame Jennifer Devant. A glint has entered her eye and the cheroot is waved imperiously.

“Maybe,” I reply.