LILY WATCHED AS HANS Probst got up from his chair and went to the window. It was the third time he’d done so. From where she was sitting on the other side of the room she could hear the rattle of ice crystals as they were flung against the glass panes by the blizzard raging outside.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t go on yet.’
Lily could see that her companion was growing increasingly frustrated by the delay, but there was nothing she could do about it. Having failed to make contact with Billy Styles—he and Inspector Morgan were still out of touch, the Banbury police told her—they had set out from Oxford in the knowledge that the promised blizzard was expected to arrive sooner than anticipated, or so the clerk at the reception desk had told them when they left. He’d been listening to the radio. In the event the storm had broken just as they’d reached the turnoff to Enstone and with the road ahead of them suddenly all but invisible she’d had no option but to stop in the village and wait for it to subside.
While sitting in their car at the side of the road Lily had spotted a man making his slow way along the pavement towards them, head bowed against the driving snow, and got out of the car to intercept him. Intending to ask if he could tell them where they might find the local bobby, she had discovered he was the village baker and had been with the constable, Sam Butterworth, only minutes earlier.
‘Sam got me to open the shop for a moment so that he could pick up a loaf of bread for an old lady who’s been stuck in her cottage for the past couple of days,’ the man had told her. ‘He said he wanted to check on her to see if she was all right. I doubt he’ll be home, but you can try his house. It’s two doors along and you’re sure to find Nora there. She’s his missus.’
His words had been confirmed shortly afterwards by Nora Butterworth herself when Lily knocked on her door.
‘It’s Granny Murdoch he’s gone to see. She’s been all on her own, poor dear. Sam said he’d stay and chat with her for a while.’
A small, neat-featured woman, Mrs Butterworth’s horn-rimmed spectacles gave her the appearance of a benevolent owl. She had shown no surprise at the impromptu arrival of her visitors and barely glanced at the warrant card Lily showed her before urging them to come in out of the storm. But her reaction on being introduced to the Kriminalkommissar had given Lily a moment to treasure and she had needed all her resources to keep a straight face. It was clear that Nora Butterworth had never met a Jerry in her life (and probably never expected to), let alone find one sitting in her front parlour. But she had rallied well, and after only a moment’s jaw-dropping surprise had got them both settled in the room, where a fire was burning, and then brought them each a cup of tea.
‘It won’t be long now, sir,’ Lily said as the Berlin detective resumed his seat. ‘It’ll blow itself out, you’ll see. It said so on the wireless.’
‘Forgive me.’ Probst sighed. ‘I’m being impatient. One cannot hurry nature. Tell me, Sergeant, if it’s not an impertinent question, how old are you?’
‘Twenty-seven, sir. And please call me Lil. Everyone does.’
A smile came to his lips. ‘May I call you Lily rather?’ he asked. ‘It’s such a beautiful name.’ His glance took her in. ‘Twenty-seven, and already a sergeant: that is most impressive. My daughter, Elise, was a little younger than you: she would have been twenty-four.’
He nodded, as though to assure himself of the fact, and then sat silent. Lily waited. Would have?
‘She was a remarkable child in many ways. Gentle, always truthful, and much loved by her friends. But as war approached everything changed. Suddenly the voices around us were filled with hatred and we came to learn, slowly at first, but in time with certainty, that terrible things no one spoke of were being done to a whole people, some of them friends and formerly neighbours of ours. Yet somehow she remained herself. I often ask myself what she would have done with the rest of her life. I have a feeling she might have become a teacher.’
Lily knew she had to say something.
‘Did she . . . was she . . . ?’
‘. . . killed in the war? Yes, I fear so. She and her mother together: they both perished in an air raid. But I did not, as you see, for the simple reason that I wasn’t there.’
‘There?’
‘At home with them, in Hamburg: I was in Berlin, on business, or so I told myself, but in truth I had felt the need of a break from the routines of daily life, which in wartime take on a grimmer aspect; like iron bars they lock us in the prison of our lives and we look in vain for relief. So a few days in Berlin and a chance to see old friends seemed like a good idea. I would return refreshed, I told myself, altogether a better person, more agreeable to live with. How easily we persuade ourselves of our good intentions.’
His expression had changed while he was speaking and Lily saw that he was suffering now, in the grip of some strong emotion.
‘I had intended to be away for only three days, but at the last moment, just before I was due to catch my train, I was invited to attend a dinner where some of my closest colleagues from the past, men I respected, would be present. The temptation was too great to resist. I postponed my return to Hamburg by a day.’
Although the room was not unduly warm—the fire was a small one—Lily could see the drops of sweat on his brow.
‘The first bombers came to Hamburg that same night. They arrived with little warning, but all the same the sirens would have sounded and if I’d been there, as I’d planned, I might have reacted a little quicker than my wife and daughter. I might have found some place of safety for us all; or, failing that, I would have died with them.’
Lily watched in horror as he covered his eyes with his hands, and they sat like that, in silence, for minutes on end it seemed.
‘I was too late, you see . . .’ Probst looked up. ‘That was all I meant to tell you, and I can never forgive myself. If I had returned a day earlier as I’d meant to . . .’ He shrugged hopelessly. ‘As for the rest, forgive me, please, I did not mean to burden you with it.’
‘No, don’t say that,’ Lily burst out. She could feel the tears running down her cheeks.
Probst looked at her in amazement. His blue eyes, like hers, were overflowing.
‘What you were telling me,’ she said, ‘what you meant to say was that you want to get where we’re going as quickly as possible. Is that right?’
‘You guessed that?’ He looked at her in wonder. ‘You understood me? Dear Lily, you remind me so much of my Elise. And yes, you are right.’
He bowed his head in affirmation.
‘I can’t help it. I fear for our friends. We must go on as soon as we can. I cannot be late a second time.’