Michael nodded. ‘I’d pay our share, of course. I’ll discuss it with Leni.’
Leni agreed to stay in the flat, happy that her new husband and her brother had become friends.
Months went by. The three of them fell into a routine. Each morning, Leni would make both men breakfast. They would sit together and share a meal, after which Dieter would leave for the office. Dieter had no idea what Michael Blackwell got up to during the day. Michael didn’t discuss his personal activities with Dieter. Dieter didn’t ask about them.
He spent more and more time in his room after dinner, leaving Leni and Michael in the living room of the flat. He told himself he didn’t care, until he noticed subtle changes taking place. They would talk in whispers, but when Dieter entered the room, they stopped speaking and stared at him with blank smiles on their faces.
It was about this time when Dieter noticed a change in his neighbours. They used to look at him and smile. Now they wouldn’t look him in the eye, and some had taken to crossing the street when he came near. They no longer stopped to ask after his health or discuss the utter lack of decent coffee or meat. His neighbours were afraid of him. Leni and Michael were up to something, or Michael was up to something and Leni was blindly following along.
During this time, Dieter noticed a man milling outside the flat when he left for his walk to the office. He recognised him, as he had been there the day before, standing in the doorway in the apartment building across the street. Fear clenched Dieter’s gut, cramping his bowels. He forced himself to breathe, to keep his eyes focused straight ahead and continue on as though nothing were amiss. He knew a Gestapo agent when he saw one. He heard the rumours of Hitler’s secret police. Dieter was a good German. He kept his eyes on the ground and his mouth shut.
Once he arrived at his office, he hurried up to his desk and peered out the window onto the street below. Nothing. So they weren’t following him. Of course they weren’t following him. Why would they? It didn’t take Dieter long to figure out that Michael Blackwell had aroused the Gestapo’s interest. He had to protect Leni. He vowed to find out what Michael was up to.
His opportunity came on a Saturday in April, when Leni and Michael had plans to be out for the day. They claimed they were going on a picnic, but Dieter was certain they were lying when he discovered the picnic hamper on the shelf in the kitchen. He wasn’t surprised. His sister was a liar now. It wasn’t her fault. He blamed Michael Blackwell. He had smiled and wished them a pleasant day. After that, he moved to the window and waited until they exited the apartment, arm in arm, and headed away on their outing. When they were safely out of sight, Dieter bolted the door and conducted a thorough, methodical search.
He went through all of the books in the flat, thumbing through them before putting them back exactly as he found them. Nothing. He rifled drawers, looked under mattresses, went through pockets. Still nothing. Desperate now, he removed everything from the wardrobe where Michael and Leni hung their clothes. Only after everything was removed did Dieter see the wooden crate on the floor, tucked into the back behind Michael’s tennis racket. He took it out and lifted the lid, to reveal neat stacks of brochures, the front of which depicted a castle and a charming German village. The cover read, Lernen Sie Das Schone Deutschland: Learn About Beautiful Germany. Puzzled, Dieter took one of the brochures, opened it, read the first sentence, and cried out.
Inside the brochure was a detailed narrative of the conditions under Hitler’s regime. The writer didn’t hold back. The brochure told of an alleged terror campaign of murder, mass arrests, execution, and an utter suspension of civil rights. There was a map of all the camps, which – at least according to this brochure – held over one hundred thousand or more Communists, Social Democrats, and trade unionists. The last page was a plea for help, a battle cry calling for Hitler and his entire regime to be overthrown.
Dieter’s hand shook. Fear made his mouth go dry. They would all be taken to the basement at Prinz Albrecht Strasse for interrogation and torture. If they survived, they would be sent to one of the camps. A bullet to the back of the head would be a mercy. Sweat broke out on Dieter’s face; drops of it formed between his shoulder blades. He swallowed the lump that formed in the back of his throat, as the fear morphed into blind, infuriating anger and exploded in a black cloud of rage directed at Michael Blackwell.
How dare he expose Leni to this type of danger? Dieter needed to protect his sister. He stuffed the brochures back in the crate, put the lid on it, and pushed the box back into the recesses of the wardrobe. There was only one thing for Dieter to do.
Marry in haste, repent at leisure, says the bird in the gilded cage. The words – an apt autobiography to be sure – ran round and round in Cat Carlisle’s head. She pressed her forehead against the cold windowpane and scanned the street in front of her house. Her eyes roamed the square, with its newly painted benches and gnarled old trees leafed out in verdant June splendour. A gang of school-aged boys kicked a ball on the grass, going out of their way to push and shove as they scurried along. They laughed with glee when the tallest of the group fell on his bum, turned a somersault, popped back up, and bowed deeply to his friends. She smiled and pushed away the longing that threatened whenever a child was near.
She thought of the time when she and her husband had loved each other, confided in each other. How long had it been since they’d had a civil conversation? Five years? Ten? How long had it been since she discovered that Benton Carlisle and Trudy Ashworth – of the Ashworth textile fortune – were involved in a long-term love affair? Ten years, two months and four days. For the record book, that’s how long it took for Benton’s love to morph into indifference and for the indifference to fester into acrimony. Now Cat and her husband rarely spoke. On the rare occasions when they did speak, the words between them were sharp and laced with animosity.
Cat turned and surveyed the room that she had claimed for her own, a small sanctuary in the Carlisles’ Kensington house. When she and Benton discovered she was with child the first time, they pulled down the gloomy wallpaper and washed the walls a charming shade of buttercup yellow, perfect for a child of any sex. But Cat had lost the child before the furniture had been ordered. In an abundance of caution, they hadn’t ordered furniture when Cat became pregnant for a second and third time. Those babies had not survived in her womb either. Now she had claimed the nursery as her own.
It was the sunniest room in the house. When Benton started to stay at his club – at least that’s what he told Cat; she knew he really stayed at Trudy’s flat in Belgravia – Cat moved in and decorated it to suit her own taste. She found she rather liked this small space. A tiny bed, an armoire to hold her clothes, and a writing table – with space between the pieces – were the only furnishings in the room. She had removed the dark Persian rug and left the oak floors bare, liking the way the honey-toned wood warmed the room. She had washed away the buttercup yellow and painted the walls stark white.
‘Miss?’ The maid stood in the open doorway of Cat’s bedroom. She was too young to be working, thirteen if she was a day, skinny and pale with a mousy brown bun peeking out from the white cap and sharp cheekbones that spoke of meals missed.
‘Who’re you?’ Cat asked. She forced a smile so as not to scare the poor thing.
‘Annie, ma’am.’ Annie took a tentative step into Cat’s room. In one hand she carried a wooden box full of feather dusters, rags, and other cleaning supplies. In the other she carried a broom and dustpan. ‘I’m to give you the message that Alicia Montrose is here. She is eager to see you.’ She looked around the room. ‘And then I am to turn your room.’
‘I’ll just finish up and be down shortly,’ Cat said.
The girl hesitated in the doorway.
‘You can come in and get started,’ Cat said.
‘Thank you, miss.’ The girl moved into the room and started to work away, focusing on the tasks at hand. ‘Do you mind if I open the window? I like to air the bed linens.’