Murder on the Short List (11 page)

Maggie shouted, “Bitch!” and kicked her repeatedly with the free leg. Donna knew she had to hold on.

Each kick was like a dagger-thrust in her kidneys.

I can't take this, she told herself.

The agony became unbearable. She let go.

The sudden removal of the clamp on Maggie's leg must have affected her balance. Donna felt the full force of Maggie's weight across her body followed by a scream, a long, despairing and diminishing scream.

D
onna dragged herself away from the crumbling edge and then flopped on the turf again. Almost another half-hour passed before she was able to stagger to the phone box and ask for help.

When she told her story to the police, she kept it simple. She wasn't capable of telling it all. She'd been brought here on the pretext of meeting someone and then attacked with a bottle and almost forced over the edge. Her attacker had tripped and gone over.

Even the next day, when she made a full statement for their records, she omitted some of the details. She decided not to tell them she'd been at the point of suicide when she discovered that bench. She let them believe she'd come on a sentimental journey to remember her childhood. It didn't affect their investigation.

Maggie's body was recovered the same day. Lionel, elusive to the end, was washed up at Hastings by a storm the following October.

He left only debts. Donna had expected nothing and was not discouraged. Since her escape she valued her life and looked forward.

And the bench? You won't find it at Beachy Head.

A
dolf Hitler stared across the restaurant.

Camilla, blonde, eighteen and English, succeeded in saying without moving her lips, “He's looking, he's looking, he's looking!”

“For a waiter, not you, dear,” Dorothy Rigby remarked. Rigby was, at this formative stage in her life, less flagrantly sexy than her friend Camilla. Rigby's appeal was subversive and ultimately more devastating. Here in Munich, in September, 1938, the girls were at the Countess Schnabel's Finishing School. Rigby's lightly permed brown hair was cut in a modest style approved by the Countess, so that a small expanse of neck showed above the collar of one's white lawn blouse.

It was Camilla who had dragged her into the Osteria Bavaria. Their table was chosen for the unimpeded view it afforded of the Führer and his party, or rather, the view it afforded the Führer of Camilla. Flamboyant Camilla with her blue Nordic eyes, her cupid's-bow pout and her bosom plumped up with all the silk stockings she owned. She was resolved to enslave the most powerful man in Europe. It wasn't impossible. It had been done by Unity Mitford, the Oxfordshire girl turned Rhine-maiden, who had staunchly occupied this same chair in Hitler's favourite restaurant through the winter of 1935 until she had been called to his table. From that time Unity had been included on the guest lists for Hitler's mountain retreat at Obersalzberg, and for the Nuremburg rallies, the Bayreuth Festival and the Olympic Games.

Until this moment, Camilla had unaccountably failed to emulate Miss Mitford, though she was just as dedicated, just as blonde and, by her own assessment, prettier.

Until this moment.

“Oh, my hat! He's talking to his Adjutant. He's pointing to this table. To
me
!”

“Calm down, Cami.”

Camilla gripped the edge of the tablecloth. “God, this is it! The adjutant is coming over.”

Undeniably he was. Young, clean-shaven, cool as a brimming
Bierglas,
he saluted and announced, “Ladies, the Führer has commanded me to present his compliments . . .”

“So gracious!” piped up Camilla in her best German.

“. . . and states that he would prefer to finish his lunch without being stared at.” Another click of the heels, an about-turn, and that was that.

“I'm dead,” said Camilla after a stunned silence. “How absolutely ghastly! Let's leave at once.”

“Certainly not,” said Rigby. “He wants to be ignored, so we'll ignore him. More coffee?”

“Is that wise?”

They remained at their table until Hitler rose to leave. For a moment he glared in their direction, his blue eyes glittering. Then he slapped his glove against the sleeve of his raincoat and marched out.

“Odious little fart,” said Rigby.

“I hope Mr Chamberlain spits in his eye,” said Camilla.

“He'll have Mr Chamberlain on toast.”

Outside, in Schellingstrasse, heels clicked and the young adjutant saluted again. “Excuse me, ladies. I have another message to convey from the Führer.”

“We don't wish to hear it,” said Rigby. “Come on, Camilla. We're not standing here to be insulted.”

Camilla was rooted to the pavement. “A message from him?”

“This is difficult. The message is for the dark-haired young lady.”

“
Me?
” said Rigby.

Camilla gave a sudden sob and covered her eyes.

“The Führer will dine at Boettner's this evening. He has arranged for you to join his party. Fräulein, er . . .”

“I am not one of your Fräuleins. I am
Miss
Rigby.”

“From England?” The adjutant frowned and reddened.

Rigby said off-handedly. “Actually I was born in Madras. India, you know. I expect he thought I was a starry-eyed little Nazi wench. Will you be there?”

He stared back. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, will you be there?”

“As it happens, no.”

“A night off?”

“Well, yes.”

“How convenient. You can tell Herr Hitler that when you found out the young lady's dusky origins you did what any quick-witted officer of the Reich would have done – arranged to take her to dinner yourself, thus saving your Führer from sullying his snow-white principles.”

His eyes widened. First they registered shock, then curiosity, then capitulation.

H
is name was Manfred, he told her in the candlelight at Walterspiel that evening. “It's strange,” he said. “I took you for an English girl.”

“Oh, I am by blood. Daddy served in India with the Army.”

He frowned. “Then why did you decline the Führer's invitation – such an honour?”

“I didn't care for the way it was communicated, as if I was biddable, to put it mildly.”

“But I think your friend was biddable.”

She laughed. “Still is. She's stopped talking to me. She can't understand why she was overlooked. Frankly, neither can I. Camilla has the fair hair and blue eyes, and much more.”

He leaned forward confidentially. “With respect, Miss Rigby, I think you misunderstood the Führer's motives. He is not in want of female companionship. There is a lady at Obersalzberg.”

“Eva Braun?”

“Ah. You are well informed.”

“Then why did he ask me to dinner?”

Manfred took a sip of wine. “Some years ago there was a girl, his stepniece actually, who died. He was very devoted to her, more than an uncle should be. No, I mean nothing improper. Like a father. She was eighteen when she came to Munich. He took her about, to picnics, the opera, paid for singing lessons, rented a room for her.”

“What was her name?”

“Angela Raubal, known to him as Geli. She looked remarkably like you. The dark hair, the cheekbones, the whole shape of your face, your beautiful hazel eyes. This, I think, is why he wanted to meet you.”

“I see. And you say she died?”

“Shot herself with the Führer's own gun.” He paused. “No one knows why. I think perhaps it was best that he did not meet you. But please understand that it was not because you are English. The Führer and Mr Chamberlain are much in agreement, wanting to keep the peace in Europe.”

“Neville Chamberlain does, without a doubt,” said Rigby with a quick, ironic smile.

“So does the Führer.”

“Yes – if the other powers allow him to march into Czechoslovakia.”

He frowned. “You speak of international politics – a young girl?”

Rigby decided to take the remark as a compliment. She was a great reader of newspapers. She'd often been told that comments on international affairs came oddly from a girl of her age, but she wasn't perturbed. Crisply she analysed the crisis over Germany's claims to the Sudeten regions of Czechoslovakia and the dangerous effects of Hitler's
Lebensraum
policy. Manfred used the stock German argument that something had to be done about the crushing restrictions imposed at Versailles after the Great War.

“It won't wash,” commented Rigby. “It's transparently clear that Czechoslovakia is next on your Führer's list. God help us all.”

He gave the grin of someone with inside information. “But it will not lead to war.”

She said, “You're very close to him, aren't you?”

He nodded.

“He thinks he has the measure of our Prime Minister, doesn't he?”

He gave a shrug that didn't deny it.

Patriotically casting about for something in the Prime Minister's favour, she said, “You tell him that Neville Chamberlain may be almost seventy, but he forgets nothing. His memory is phenomenal.”

“Is that important?”

She said, “Hitler relies on people having short memories, doesn't he?”

He said, “I think it is time we talked of something else. Shall we walk in the Englischer Garten?”

There they followed the twists of the stream among the willows until almost midnight. They sat on a bench, listening to the trickle of the water, and she allowed him to kiss her.

She murmured, “What would the Führer say about this?”

He laughed softly. “What happens tonight is nobody's business but yours and mine.”

Resting her face against his shoulder, she said, “Manfred, if I were very bold and made a suggestion, would you do something to please me – something really daring?”

“What is it?”

“It's a practical joke. I need your help to make it work. It will be enormous fun.”

He said, “If you wish.” Then, bleakly, “I thought for a moment you were going to suggest something else.”

She smiled and nestled closer. “That's not for me to suggest.”

I
t was a measure of the priorities at the Countess Schnabel's Finishing School that the Countess herself took the deportment class. “Upright in body is upright in mind,” she repeatedly informed the seventeen young ladies in her care. “Perfect posture is perfectly obtainable. Cross the room once more, Camilla, if you please.
Ooh! Grotesk!
Don't rotate the hips so.”

The lesson ended at noon. The Countess clapped her hands. “Before you leave, I give you a thrilling announcement. Tomorrow the school is to be honoured by a visitor, a visitor so important that I am not yet at liberty to mention his name. No finishing school in Munich has ever been so favoured. Suffice to say that you will all be perfectly groomed, immaculately dressed and silent unless spoken to.”

Camilla told Rigby sourly that it was obvious who the V.I.P. was. “And I can't bear to face him when it's perfectly clear that he's coming to ogle you. I shall report sick.”

So when the Countess swept into the gym at ten next morning and triumphantly announced the Führer, only sixteen girls were present to say, “
Heil
Hitler,” and salute.

Rigby had no eyes for the strutting figure in the black mackintosh with his Chaplin moustache. She gazed steadily at Manfred, standing a pace to the rear, feet astride and arms folded, wearing his brown uniform with the swastika arm-band. He appeared twice as handsome this morning. He had more than proved his daring. This stunt was incredibly reckless and he had engineered it himself, simply because she had asked him.

She rather thought she had fallen in love.

“Dorothy, I hope you are paying attention,” said the Countess.

The timetable had been adjusted. Deportment again. A chance for the Countess to make an impression. For twenty minutes the class went through its paces, breathing, balancing and walking gracefully, all without a noticeable hitch. Then the Countess turned, curtsied, and asked if the Führer would gracefully consent to present the posture medal to the girl with best deportment, and certificates to the others.

It was a pleasing little ceremony. Of course, the Countess nominated her favourite for the medal, an obnoxious girl called Dagmar who was one of the Hitler Youth, but everyone else stepped forward in turn for a certificate.

His handshake was damp and flabby, Rigby noted as she collected hers.

At Manfred's suggestion, the certificates had been typed that morning in the school office. They read simply:
Presented by the Führer for Good Posture
.

And now the Countess was asked whether every girl in the school had received a certificate. She had to explain that one of the girls was unfortunately in the sick-bay. The Führer insisted on going upstairs to meet Camilla.

Rigby almost purred, things were going so well.

The official party moved out.

Frustratingly she couldn't contrive to witness the scene upstairs. But she imagined it vividly: Camilla saucer-eyed as the Führer entered and approached the bedside; speechless when he asked if she was the young lady he had seen in the Osteria Bavaria; and flabbergasted when he grasped her hand, leaned close and whispered that he wouldn't mind climbing into bed with her.

Rigby shook with silent laughter.

Then her daydream was shattered by gunfire.

Panic.

Girls screamed.

Rigby dashed to the staircase. On the landing she met Portland, the fellow in the black mackintosh who had posed as Hitler. He was a limpet-like admirer she had dragooned into this performance after he'd followed her to Munich. His Hitler impersonation had been a highlight of the Chelsea Arts Ball.

“What happened?”