Hitler's Girls (6 page)

“You last saw Mel
when
, Chris? I want to help you find her.”

But I knew, as the words came out, that Chris was as anxious to keep away from questions and police as any of the other kids on the estate. I was losing him, with my pragmatic enquiries and my strained, worried attitude. “Did you see her—today—or yesterday?” I nevertheless went on. Something told me I had Chris Bradley for a very short time, that he half-trusted me at least, and this was more than the Detective Inspector on the case could ever hope for.

“Yeah,” came the reply. “I saw her—but I was too busy to chat an’ I said I’d talk to her la’er.”

“But when, Chris? Later, when?” I realised I’d fallen into the trap people of an older generation fall into when the young say they’ll see you “later.” It means nothing at all, just a manner of speech. “Did you know Mel came here with—with the gang and—and perhaps—without meaning to—with the knife?”

Chris’s eyes went blank again. He muttered something about having to go and check something out. He left the kitchen and nothing could keep him in Monica’s house a moment longer.

He did, however, say, standing on the shallow doorstep just twenty feet from where this appalling murder took place, that his sister’s name was Kim and I could go and see her if I wanted to. “She wouldn’t take nothin’ from them,” Chris Bradley said. “She said, ‘I won’t go in that house to rob, man, no way.’ That’s what she said, Mrs.—”

Chris was looking up at me as if I were his school-teacher. It was all I could do to conceal my horror at the world Mel had clearly joined. “My name is Jean,” I said gently—but this, as I might have guessed, only served to frighten him off.

“Where does your sister live?” I called the fatuous question along the garden path, fringed now in this unreal sunshine with scyllas, grape hyacinths, and the odd, city-grimed primrose.

Chris turned at the gate. A tropical plant—just the kind of thing poor Monica would have detested—whipped him in the face from the next door plot. “Burnside,” he said.

Then he was gone. I am able only to continue with my report of the events and findings of the day. For to describe Chris Bradley further would be counter-productive. The upset it would cause me would destroy the fragile likelihood of my finding Mel—and of discovering, finally, who Monica Stirling “really” is—and why she had to die.

Peter Müller emailed an encrypted message to the five men of his inner circle. “I have the girl. She is half-willing. The second part of the program will soon be accomplished.”

He went into the dressing room next to his bedroom, put on his dinner jacket, and frowned at his image in the glass. He did not expect congratulations from the recipients of his message. Nevertheless, soon enough they would be satisfied.

He went down the handsome curved staircase to the ground floor of the house, where a small, dark-haired man awaited him and ushered him into the dining room. There, Muller’s host stood by a white marble fireplace, warming his back in front of a crackling log fire. In the centre of the room a polished table was set with three places, candles burning in silver sconces. Muller privately found this ceremonial excessive, but understood that for his host the rituals were freighted with an importance he did not properly understand.

The stocky man at the fireplace, Lord Edgar of Langsedge, came forward when Muller entered and said, “Ah, good, Muller. Punctual as ever. Alice is, of course, late.”

Muller smiled. “A woman’s privilege.”

“So they say,” Edgar replied. “Well—how’s your little captive?”

“She was not entirely reluctant,” Muller pointed out. “She’s asleep now. The nurse is with her, naturally.”

“Splendid. Reliable woman?”

“Entirely. I’m grateful you allowed me to impose on your hospitality in this way—”

“Only too delighted to be able to help,” his host replied. “Take all the time you need.”

“Thank you,” Muller said.

“No thanks required. Anyway, we’re much looking forward to our jaunt to France. A drink?”

Muller accepted a whisky, evidently from a rare source somewhere in Scotland, and watched Edgar throw another log on the fire. “Applewood,” he said, “you can tell by the delicious scent.” Muller nodded politely but wondered what insecurities lay behind this discreet boasting. There was some weakness there, he concluded, and knew that weaknesses were dangerous in associates. Then Lady Edgar came into the room, a woman as tall and thin as her husband was broad and tending
to fat. It was as if, Muller thought, her husband had seized her substance rather like a vampire, but he knew the reality to be otherwise. The real strength in the union came from her. She greeted him. “Mr. Muller, so nice to see you again. How is the young lady?”

“Resting. It was kind of you to let me bring her here. It’s simply exhaustion, the doctor has told me. Too much study, too many parties. The young don’t understand their limitations.”

“True,” said Lady Edgar. “But they also recuperate more quickly than, alas, older people. But let her take all the time she needs.”

“You’re more than kind.”

“Nothing is too much trouble. I think if everyone’s ready we might sit down.”

At the table, as a maid came and went, the three made small talk with difficulty. They had little in common. The Edgars were British people of the upper class; Muller was German by nationality but born and brought up in Argentina, the child of two Germans who had fled in 1944: a pale and weary mother who had not transplanted well and a father who lived for forty years in a frenzy of nationalism and the bitterness of defeat, until death ended his exile.

“We’ve just spent a fortnight at Monkstone,” Lady Edgar said.

“My brother’s place,” her husband explained. “The Edgars have been there for centuries, since about 1740, I think it is. Lovely village, beautiful countryside, near Shrewsbury. I don’t think it can have changed much in all that time, since the earlier Edgars bought the place—sugar—they had plantations in the West Indies—it’s not done to talk about that sort of thing in some circles these days, I know, even if it’s true.”

“Unchanged,” Lady Edgar said. “Such nice people around. They’ve been there for centuries, too. And,” she added, “of course, not a black face to be seen, which is a relief.”

The maid had now put down the puddings. The meal consisted of thin soup, then fish, all perhaps designed as much to avoid unhealthy foodstuffs as to please the palate. The pudding, Muller discovered, consisted of little individual dishes of crust, covering some fruit. The maid offered custard in a silver jug. Muller declined. Lord Edgar helped himself. The maid left the room.

“Pudding,” he declared with satisfaction.

“He must have his puddings,” his wife said indulgently.

“Of course,” Muller said with a smile. He tackled his crumble diligently. “Delicious,” he said.

“You should have had the custard,” Edgar said. “In my opinion, a pudding’s nothing without custard. But you’ll be laughing at our ancient British customs.”

“Never that,” Muller said.

Spoon aloft, Edgar said, “Alice is right. Half the beauty of Monkstone is that it’s English, same now as it’s always been and, please God, always will be.”

“Quite different from London,” said his wife. “When I look round I can’t believe what’s been allowed to happen. It’s a temptation to leave, but John has his duties here—”

“I’ll never leave,” Edgar said vigorously. “I’ll stand firm, and fight back.”

“Stop the rot,” his wife agreed.

“The rot will be stopped,” Muller assured them. “It will be eradicated.”

“Did you see
The Telegraph
!” Lady Edgar exclaimed. “There are upwards of two million immigrants in this country alone. Never mind the rest of Europe. And half of them are illegals, unrecorded, living here, breeding like rabbits. We’re becoming a mongrel race. The country’s like a corpse being stripped bare. We need to build a wall round Europe.”

“A ring of steel,” Edgar said with relish.

“No-one comes in. No-one gets out.”

Muller smiled and nodded his approval but added nothing. The maid had been blonde, but who knew where she came from? The manservant was from the Phillipines and who knew what scrapings from the world’s gutters were working in the kitchen.

He did not want these people passing on information, one to another, in whatever shabby shared rooms in dilapidated houses they inhabited. Not when so much had been achieved and there was so much left to do.

The trio went into the drawing room for an hour and then Muller got up, apologising, saying he must look in on the girl and complete some arrangements he had yet to make.

The girl lay in a blue-green room with heavy brocade curtains at the window, muffling the sound of London traffic outside. The large bed on which she lay had a curved, gilded headboard showing nymphs and cupids at play and the counterpane was of the same heavy material as the curtains. The sheets and pillowcases were—as he had insisted—linen. He had ordered the removal of the pictures on the walls: a dog with a dead bird and a couple in early Victorian dress. His aim was to make the room as silent as possible and to remove all stimuli from the girl. She had been allowed too much pointless distraction by her fool of a grandmother. That was now over.

She lay on her back, arms above the bed coverings. Her nails were bitten and on one arm a tattooed snake ran from her wrist into to the short sleeve of the white cotton nightgown she wore.

Muller looked down at her. The tattoo could be lasered off. Her hair, heavy black with pale brown showing at the roots,
could be dyed back to its proper colour, perhaps made a little lighter. Her clothes—the jeans, the cropped top, and the leather jacket—had all gone off for cleaning and purifying; he would have had them thrown out, but did not want to argue with her when she awoke. Nevertheless, she would have to wear more suitable clothes. She looked pasty, too, which, again, could be remedied.

He looked down at the figure in the big bed. Lost, like all of them, living in a morally polluted world without passion or energy, fed on junk food, addicted to alcohol and drugs, their minds taken over by the worst music, the worst films, the worst ethics—but she had good blood, this girl. She could be saved. Tomorrow, the work would begin.

Back in his room Muller put his jacket on a hanger in the dressing room and sat down at the computer to see what his core group had made of the earlier message. He was not surprised at what he found. From Vienna, George Drago (Muller could picture the square, pale face and small angry eyes) wrote, “If a man is sent to pick up two parcels and only comes back with one, you wonder: Will the second parcel ever materialise?’” The response from Lachaume in France was predictably more polite: “I congratulate you on having succeeded with the first part of the plan, but would be grateful for news of the progress of the second part.” The responses from Grigorieff in
Russia and Toscano in Italy were much the same and it was left to Leyden in Holland to burst out, “The girl is one thing, Muller. The money the other. What about the money?” Muller swore under his breath. Even routed halfway round the world, even encrypted, messages could still be read, if there was a will to read them. What had persuaded Leyden to be so indiscreet? His only reply to all five men was to reiterate, in coded form, the date, time, and place of their meeting. He was certainly not going to send any further messages.

He thought the key to the problem might be that strange woman he had met in the dismal house in Bandesbury Road. He had searched it once, with no result, and when he had gone back to search more thoroughly, there she was with a vacuum cleaner, bin bags, and dusters.

At first he had taken her for a cleaner. But her blouse had been silk, with an odd-looking brooch at the neck, and her shoes, though ugly, looked expensive. She spoke fluent English, too, with a slight accent he could not identify, and she had an air of confidence, although, he thought, she had been naïve enough to accept the fact that instructions on paper from a dead woman might have some validity. Then there was the boy, Chris, from the council estate. She had so calmly let him in, apparently without fearing what one of these savages might do.
And when he left, it looked as if there was some understanding between them.

So who was she? He’d soon know. He’d photographed everything, her picture was now with supporters all round the world. Someone would know who she was. The boy was expendable; he’d need to be taken care of.

I shall never cease to regret the fact that I waited before going in search of Kim, Chris’s sister.

Something about the idea of penetrating one of the estates in the Bandesbury area daunted me: I must freely confess it, though I am not one to expect absolution from anyone. On my own home ground, in the worst slums of Edinburgh, I would be able, I believe, to field the jibes and taunts with which I would inevitably be greeted.

But here—the language is unknown to me. I could see that Chris spoke to me as he would have addressed his teacher or a social worker. The Girl Gang, with Kim and perhaps a frightened, violent Mel, was not an appealing prospect. I needed a companion, or perhaps, for I am seldom anything other than honest with myself, a protector.

It did not occur to me, however, that I would find such a figure in Jim Graham. Indeed, my heart sank when, turning into the doors of the Banesden Grove Library, the nearest library in
this area of deprived families and philistine suburbanites that remains open (a few hours a day at least), I saw him sitting studiously at a desk near the window.

There is always something irritating about going off on a research project and finding another person there before you. In my day at Edinburgh University, there was such an abundance of materials that a long wait for a necessary volume seldom, if ever, took place. I and twenty others might be engaged in identical voyages of discovery without the galling need to join a queue. This in Edinburgh has sadly changed over the past twenty years. Here, in Northwest London, it is hardly worth remarking that a shortage of books is inevitable. I saw, as soon as I entered, gaps on the shelves where once important works of reference and historical interest had been stored. These had been, I suspected, thrown out rather than borrowed, and a kind of kiddies’ corner was all that remained of the Banesden Grove Library.