Deadlight-Hall(52)

‘Work will free you,’ I said, half to myself.

‘Yes. Was ever there a crueller irony than those words? Beyond those gates are the barracks with their rows of grim cell-like rooms – and the places about which those dread rumours have circulated. We do not need to name them. We both know what they are. Sch?nbrunn waited until he heard army trucks coming along the road. Then he walked out and waved them down.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’ A shrug. ‘He never tells anyone all of his plans. I could not see what the trucks carried – not prisoners, I don’t think. Supplies of some kind, perhaps. There was some interchange between Sch?nbrunn and the driver – I could not hear it, and it was in rapid German anyway. Then three of the soldiers sprang out of the truck and almost threw him into the vehicle.’

‘And?’ I said, as he broke off.

‘They drove through the gates into the camp,’ he said. ‘My belief is that he had some story ready to tell them – he has used several, as you know.’

‘But this time they did not believe him.’

‘Or,’ said my companion, ‘this time someone was one step ahead and had warned the Nazis that he was coming.’

‘A traitor among his own people?’

‘I’m afraid so. In which case, Sch?nbrunn will now be dead.’

If Sch?nbrunn is dead I cannot see how we will ever find out what happened to Sophie and Susannah. But I shall stay hopeful that being taken into Auschwitz was part of his plan – that he intended to get in there all along, and that he spun those Germans a deliberately thin cover story. But it is a vain hope.

And so the whereabouts of the Reiss twins is as unknown as it ever was. I fear we may never find out the truth.

M.B.





FOURTEEN


Nell was having a good Monday morning, following an excellent weekend. On Saturday the Japanese customers had not only bought the Regency sofas, they had also bought the inlaid table. There had been much courtesy and compliments, and Mr Hironaka had extended an invitation to Nell to visit his family if ever she were in his country.

She had spent most of Sunday morning applying Danish oil to a late-Elizabethan dower chest, which would replace the sofas in the shop window, and at midday Michael had taken her and Beth to lunch at one of Oxford’s many riverside inns, after which Beth had gone to spend the rest of the afternoon with a school friend. Nell and Michael had ended up at Quire Court and had made slow, deeply satisfactory love, with the light fading gently on the Court’s old stones outside and sun slanting across the bed. Afterwards Michael had said something about the serenity of ancient, undisturbed ghosts, and Nell had thought it might be better not to tell him yet that she was considering bashing down walls and demolishing ceilings, and risking plunging the serene ghosts into distracted madness and probable mass exodus.

Monday had dawned full of sunshine and promise, and over breakfast Beth had talked with exuberance about Michael’s latest project for the Wilberforce history books.

‘Elizabeth the First and Guy Fawkes and stuff. He’s going to write about Wilberforce’s ancestors and I’m going to help.’

‘He’ll enjoy doing that. And it’ll help your history lessons as well.’

‘I thought,’ said Beth, giving her mother a cautious look, ‘that he could have a musician Wilberforce somewhere. Um, like when they had minstrels. They travelled around and wrote their own music and stuff. A bit like pop stars today,’ said Beth, with unexpected perception.

‘That sounds quite a good idea.’

Beth beamed, then said, ‘D’you think I could suggest it to Michael? Only I don’t want him to think I’m trying to kind of push in on things.’

‘I think it would be fine to suggest it,’ said Nell. ‘But I’m pleased you asked before you actually said anything to him.’

‘If you and Michael got married,’ said Beth, hanging over her breakfast so that Nell could not see her face, ‘I ‘spect he’d wouldn’t live in College any more, would he?’

‘I expect not, but we’re fine as we are, and you’re—’

‘Entering into the realms of fantasy,’ finished Beth.

‘Yes. Are you having any more toast? And have you got your gym things ready?’

‘Yes and yes. Don’t fuss,’ said Beth.

After Beth had been delivered to school, Nell spent an hour with Godfrey Purbles, inspecting the rooms in the bookshop, and discussing with him how practical it would be to knock through from her own premises to make one large shop.