The Poellenberg Inheritance (3 page)

‘Stop calling him my father.' Paula burst out with it, the suppressed anger of a lifetime exploding in that angry cry. ‘He's my bloody stepfather and I didn't choose him! Go up to him and leave me. That's what you've always done!'

She dropped back into the chair and began to cry. Immediately the labrador leaned its black muzzle on her knee. She heard the door close as her mother left the room.

There was a long silence. One of the dogs moved round the room and then resumed its place by its mistress's empty chair. Paula cried for some time. It was a luxury in which she had refused to indulge, even when her marriage disintegrated. She had been unable to feel pain in such clear definition as she did at that moment, sitting alone in the study where she had grown up and always felt a stranger. After a time she became calm. She looked round her, and fought down a sudden impulse to run out of the room and the house and drive straight back to her flat. In the quiet she could hear sounds above; boards were creaking as if someone were walking up and down, but the house was built with the solidity of centuries and no voices could be heard. They must be talking up there, her mother and the Brigadier. He would be in their double bed, nursing his cold; Paula could imagine him in a dressing-gown with a silk handkerchief tucked into the neck. She had never hated him. At that moment it was her mother she hated with all the bitterness of a rejected child. She had dismissed Paula all her life, turning aside her quest for affection as she had done her questions. She had dismissed her father as if Paula had no right to think of him at all, as if his death were a reason for complete oblivion. It was as if he had never existed.

Damn her. Damn them both. She heard herself say the words aloud. She had an identity of her own, and her father was part of that identity. They had no right to deny him to her. But the expression on her mother's face was frigid with resistance. It was as if Paula had brought up some forbidden subject, something which was under an unspoken ban. She had denied knowing Black, and Paula had believed her. But the peculiar name, Poellenberg, that had meant something. It was as if her daughter had suddenly struck her in the face. It was useless to go upstairs and demand to be answered. If she faced her mother and stepfather, they would combine together as they always had, and she would retire from them in defeat.

They didn't want to discuss her father. The General, Paul Bronsart, dead and buried in the Russian wastes around Stalingrad; they had laid his ghost and enjoyed their association without any sense of guilt, so long as he and what he represented were effaced from memory. It was such a pity she had been born, Paula thought angrily. That must have made it difficult for her mother to forget that she was the widow of a distinguished German soldier. She had fraternised with the invader within months of his death. They had been living in their old house in the Platzburg outside Munich when the Allied forces entered the city and the company commander billeted himself and six of his officers in their home. Paula had heard the story from her mother in snatches over the years, a sentence here and there and once a sentimental recital of how the Brigadier, then a young major, had discovered the mistress of the mansion living in the freezing attics with a sick little girl. It had all been very touching, and Paula remembered how they had reached across and held hands while they talked about it. Her mother had married him, and fled the ruins of Germany to make a new life for herself, cocooned by the adoration of her English husband. They were inseparable, smug, completely wrapped up in each other. The inference was very plain to Paula. Whatever her father was like, his wife couldn't have cared for him at all.

Paula got up and lit a cigarette. She felt tired and angry, trapped in the house at least for that evening, a criminal waiting in the room below while her mother stayed upstairs to be comforted. The clock in the hall outside struck eight o'clock, and at the last chime the door opened and her mother stood there.

‘Aren't you coming for dinner? We're waiting.'

He must have got up and come down to support her.

Two against one again.

‘I'm not hungry,' Paula said. ‘I've got a headache, I think I'll just go to bed, if you don't mind.'

Mrs. Ridgeway came into the room. Her daughter noticed that she had changed out of her tweeds into a long black skirt and blouse. She looked very pale and handsome.

‘Paula, you've been crying! I haven't seen you cry since you were a child. Do come and have some dinner with us. Do let us forget this stupid quarrel.' She came and put a hand on Paula's arm. She looked concerned.

‘I don't want to quarrel,' Paula said. ‘I'm sorry I swore at you, Mother.'

‘That's all right, dear. Just promise me you'll forget all about that telephone call. Have nothing to do with it. It will be better for all of us.'

‘Why? Can you just answer me that? Why will it be better?'

‘Because there's nothing to be gained by bringing up the past.' The look was firm, determined to overcome resistance. She had made her gesture and now she was demanding her price. Surrender. Now do what I want and forget the whole thing.

Paula shrugged and stubbed out the cigarette. Her stepfather detested anyone smoking during meals. ‘That's not much of an answer, Mother. But I can see it's the only one you're going to give me, so don't let's argue. I'll have dinner and then I will go to bed early.' She opened the door and her mother went ahead without answering. Paula heard her stepfather coughing in the dining room.

Nothing was mentioned the next day. Paula slept late, and drove her mother to the village for some shopping. Everything seemed normal and peaceful. The Brigadier had been friendly and in good spirits the night before, but Paula was not deceived. All was not what it appeared. In spite of the people invited to drinks, the determined bonhomie of her stepfather, who was thick and spluttering with his cold, and the grim dignity of her mother, Paula knew that their calm was a façade. Their glances at each other were apprehensive; their attitude tense and worried. The telephone call was never mentioned again. It was tacitly understood that she would do as her mother wanted and ignore the caller. But they weren't sure of this, and that disturbed them. Paula spun out the day and a half till she could leave with decency. At the door they came out to say goodbye, accompanied by the dogs. It occurred to Paula that only the animals were sorry to see her go.

‘Goodbye, dear.' Her mother brushed her cold lips against her face.'

‘Goodbye, Paula.' Gerald Ridgeway had his arm linked with his wife's; he smiled at her and waved. There was a strained, unhappy look about his mouth under the ginger moustache. He looked miserable and unwell. She got into the car, wound down the window and waved to them. ‘Goodbye, thanks for the weekend; it was a lovely rest. Take care of yourself, Gerald, don't stay out in the cold.'

All the clichés of departure, the trite little phrases of farewell expected from a stranger. It was the coldest leavetaking she could remember, and it suddenly hurt so much she couldn't wait to start the car and drive away.

And then it didn't seem to matter. The next day was Monday and her appointment with Black was only a few hours away. For the first time she would be able to discover about the other half of herself. She had forgotten that the caller had something important to tell her; she had forgotten about Poellenberg, that mysterious word which had drained the blood from her mother's face till she looked like a corpse. Paula wasn't thinking of anything but the excitement of discovery and the hunger to know, so that if Providence were merciful, she would be able to love, even if it were a memory passed on to her at second hand.

Eric Fisher's plane landed at Munich airport at three-thirty. It was a warm afternoon, and the sun beat down upon the tarmac, making him sweat. Fisher was used to flying; he regarded it as a good opportunity to sleep. He was bored by the routine, the pre-lunch snacks, the rattling drinks trolley, the bland hostesses who looked so unreal he was tempted to put it to the test by pinching a round bottom in a tight skirt.

So he settled into his seat, even for a short trip like the flight from London to Munich and went straight to sleep till they landed.

He knew Munich slightly, and was looking forward to spending a day and a night there, revisiting old places known from the early days of the Cold War, when he had been a journalist. He supposed that his business could be accomplished within a couple of hours and he would have the rest of the time free. The clients were paying all expenses and he had booked himself into the Hoffburger, which was the city's best hotel. Outside Customs, he paused. He was expecting to be met. A man in a dark brown chauffeur's livery came towards him and gave a military salute. Fisher noticed with surprise that he wore old-fashioned leather boots and polished leggings.

‘Herr Fisher?'

‘Yes.'

‘Her Highness's car is just outside. Your bag, if you please. Follow me this way, sir.'

With pleasure, Fisher thought, threading a way through the crowd. Nothing so crumby as a common taxi. Her Highness's very own awaited. He grinned, enjoying himself. This was the sort of client he preferred. The car was an enormous Mercedes, shining black with silver-grey upholstery and a large coat-of-arms painted on the doors. He got into the back seat; he felt tempted to give a regal wave to the porters left outside on the pavement.

The drive took thirty-five minutes; Fisher timed it just for something to do. Scenery didn't interest him. He took a case of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one. The glass screen separating his compartment from the front slid down; without turning his head the chauffeur spoke.

‘Excuse me, Herr Fisher, but her Highness dislikes cigarette smoke in the car. Would you mind not smoking? I am very sorry but her orders are strict.'

‘Anything you say.' Fisher stubbed it out. Her Highness sounded as if she might be hell on wheels. But then money, rank and power seldom improved human nature. Especially when they were inherited along with an armament empire in a country where feudality was deeply ingrained in the people. The Germans had a passion for rank and authority. He could tell that the chauffeur despised him because he was casually dressed and his attitude was like his clothes.

With a different breed of passenger he wouldn't have mentioned the no smoking rule. He'd have cleaned and aired the car and never said a word. Fisher knew his Germans. They were the only race in the world he really disliked. He spoke the language fluently, as he did French and Italian. He liked to think of himself as completely unacademic, but he despised the English attitude which refused to learn any language on the assumption that if you shouted, foreigners understood. He had worked as correspondent for a major Midlands newspaper for five years, and then he had met Dunston, who was working for Interpol on a smuggling ring who were spiriting gold out of Western Europe into the East in return for a supply of pure opium. It had been a nasty case, with several murders and an abduction thrown in; Fisher joined the hunt on behalf of his newspaper, and by the time it was over and the ring dispersed, he and the man from Interpol had become good friends. It was Dunston who contacted him a year later and put a proposition to him over drinks in London. Dunston had left Interpol and set up on his own as a private detective. He had the skill and the police contacts, but he needed a partner. Fisher had impressed him. He was, Dunston said, a natural bloodhound. And one of the best sources of information in the world was the Press, to which he had the entrée. To start with the money wouldn't amount to much, but if they were successful, the sky could be the limit.

Fisher had no dependents; both his parents were dead and he had no intention of getting married. He could take the chance and see what happened. Within six years the Dunston Fisher Agency was the biggest private investigating service in Europe, with offices in every capital and a staff of a hundred operators. Now Dunston sat in the head office in London, and Fisher only undertook the biggest assignments, where the fees ran into thousands. The letter from the Princess Margaret Von Hessel had been addressed to Dunston, but Dunston was on holiday in Portugal. A cheque for a thousand pounds had been enclosed with the letter, as an inducement to take the case without delaying. Fisher had cabled back immediately, saying he was coming in his partner's place, and before he left for Germany, he had investigated the family. The name was famous enough. Steel, coal, armaments, property; millions and millions before both wars and a new fortune made since the end of the last. Blood which could be traced to the Bavarian kings, and to several European royal families, now dispossessed or extinct. A title granted by Frederick the Great. Castles in Germany, a vast property in East Prussia which the Communists had overrun, a villa at Cap Ferrat which had not been used for twenty years. A passion for the vicious concentration camp dog, the dobermann pinscher. And at its head the princess, aged seventy-six, the mother of two sons. Widowed in the last war when her husband died of a heart attack. Even before he arrived at the house itself, Fisher was expecting something formidable.

The car turned in through wrought-iron gates, surmounted by the heraldic boar of the Von Hessel crest. The house was enormous, a square stuccoed building, painted washed pink. Flowers were growing in ornamental tubs round a paved courtyard big enough to have taken half a dozen of the Mercedes. Trees enclosed the garden, but he glimpsed vast lawns and formal beds; the whole place gave an illusion of being in the depth of the countryside instead of within five miles of Munich's centre.

He got out, the chauffeur preceding him. A butler in uniform, brass buttoned tail-coat, white cotton gloves, opened the front door, took his hat away, and made a small bow, asking him to follow. The main hall of the house was like a church. It was dominated by a huge, hideous Victorian stained-glass window at one end; the ceiling disappeared upward in painted clouds and bibulous fauns pursuing naked nymphs. The scent of flowers was overpowering; there were huge bowls and urns filled with them, and it gave the hall a funereal smell. The furniture was heavy mahogany, massively carved, upholstered in velvet. A ten-foot gilt mirror gave Fisher a sudden glimpse of himself, standing dwarfed and uncertain in the ugly, overpowering surroundings with the light from the stained-glass window making bloody patterns over him.