Free Hitler's Girls by Emma Tennant, Hilary Bailey Page B

you that this daughter now has a granddaughter and that this granddaughter is in very greatdanger. You must prepare yourself for a shock: your niece was brutally murdered last week. You cannot have known this, of course…”
    Lady Ray leaned forward across the tea cups and the circular occasional table, edged in gilt. We could have been an Edwardian painting entitled “The Secret.” Though ill at ease, I must admit I was impressed by Jim Graham’s handling of this delicate matter.
    “Her name was Monica,” said Jim Graham.
    “Isolde,” said Lady Ray.
    The next minutes were chaotic. I recall the brooch tumbling to the floor and the lock of youthful yellow hair falling from it. Lady Ray swore in German. I suddenly remembered that, according to the story, it was Lady Ray who had been sent to rescue Clemency from her romance with Adolf Hitler, shortly after the outbreak of war.
    Indeed, she had been involved, along with other members of the family, in stratagems to “unite” the two countries long after hostilities had been officially declared. Pictures of Blackshirts in London’s East End and Hitler smiling in a sunny garden with a Wilsford sister on each arm, returned to me.
    “It all went so horribly wrong,” Lady Ray said. She made no pretence to hide her amusement now, and Jim Graham stared at her in open revulsion, measuring this woman againsthis possibly invented memory of the naked “actress” who had been such a “great lay.”
    “We all adored Hittles,” Lady Ray said. “He had such charm. He would have taken this country from the mean little men and restored it to greatness.”
    “Lady Ray,” I said, “I have had the need to study my friend’s bank accounts in order to try to penetrate the mystery of her death. Are you aware that your niece was receiving a great deal of money on a regular basis? Would you be so kind as to confirm for us the origins of this stipend?”
    Though this was a total bluff, my instinct was correct and the timing of my question was perfect. Lady Ray stared at me in horror. I concentrated on evaluating a fine chinoiserie chest, late eighteenth century, upon which cavorted gold dragons and other imaginary monsters.
    Before us was a true monster. I felt strongly that my goddaughter Melissa Stirling had become a pawn of destiny. She was the only direct descendant of Adolf Hitler. Had she been abducted by unscrupulous admirers of the evil man’s doctrine?
    “Monica certainly did start to throw it around at the end,” said Jim. “It was very unlike Monica to buy a drink, for instance. But she was happy to do so, at the end. She paid; she paid! Irish coffees all around, for instance.”
    “Lady Ray?” I said patiently. Jim and his Irish coffees were nearly bringing the whole thing down. “The stipend?”
    “Go and see Maitre Paul.” The very old woman rose from her chair. Her whole frame shook. I thought for a moment of a frail tree, a birch perhaps, bending in the face of a gale.
    Then the nurse reappeared, descending the staircase, walking with a squeaky-shoed formality through the Long Hall and into the library where she stood beside Lady Ray with quiet authority.
    I should have realised it before: Lady Ray was a seriously ill woman. The medication was for her. She had escaped from the upper room against orders from a doctor and was using our conversation as a pretext to momentarily evade the implicit orders of this silent attendant.
    Lady Ray took a malacca cane from the side of the pear-wood Récamier chaise longue by the side of the tea table and leaned on it heavily as she left the library. The nurse took her employer’s arm, guiding her down the length of the Hall and up the staircase to the upper floors of Amesbury House, leaving us alone without another word.

INTO THE HEART
    It was eight in the evening when I arrived at the Burnside council estate on a hunt for Kim.
    Leaving the Underground Station at Banesbury Grove, I entered a different world indeed from