“A little,” he replied. “German soldiers and downed pilots were housed over at a prisoner of war camp on Pembury Road. Many of the prisoners worked on local farms to supply the rest of the country with food.”
She looked at a half-timbered house outside the window, sitting above a fruit orchard and a field of ewes guarding their lambs. “Are the buildings still there?”
“No, there’s a grammar school on the property now.”
“Have you ever been to Breydon Court?”
He flashed her a curious look in the mirror. “Most people have never even heard of Breydon Court.”
She shrugged. “I’m doing some research for a story.”
“I took a passenger there once,” he said as he swerved into the other lane to avoid a pack of cyclists. “I had to drop him off at the front gate.”
They drove through a neighborhood and then down a quiet street that ended at an ornamental gate made of wrought-iron slats. On the other side, tufts of white-and-fuchsia rhododendrons padded both sides of a driveway.
“There’s an intercom.” The driver pointed toward the stone pillar on the right of the gate. “Do you want me to wait?”
“No,” she said. “I’m hoping to be here for a while.”
The gates were locked, so Quenby tried the intercom. When no one answered, she found a seat on the curb, hoping a vehicle would come in or out of the estate this afternoon. In the meantime, she decided to review her notes again on the Ricker family.
In her research, she’d discovered there were dozens of reasons why men and women became traitors—money, power, politics, devotion to a lover or family member. But it didn’t seem like the Rickers needed any of Germany’s reichsmarks, and they were already powerful in England.
If Lady Ricker had committed treason, why had she risked death by hanging to cripple the country where she lived? Or was her hatred for the Jewish people so extreme that she would do anything to exterminate them? The interrogator had said Lady Ricker’s aunt was German. Perhaps her ladyship supported nationalism, like so many others at the time, because of her Germanic roots.
Quenby closed the case over her iPad. She couldn’t fault someone for their loyalty, as long as they didn’t hurt others under the guise of allegiance. Her own grandmother had been born in 1945, while the citizens of Germany were searching for a new identity, recovering from the catastrophe of hatred and loss. Once, Grammy had told her that she followed no one but her Lord. Germany, though, held sweet memories for her, the innocent ones of a child protected by a loving mother who’d been widowed in the last year of the war.
Grammy had wanted to protect Quenby as well. She couldn’t protect her from everything, but she’d introduced her to love and forgiveness, both at home and in a man who’d also felt abandoned as He died on a cross. A man who loved her so much that He gave His very life for her.
She’d forgotten that over the years—that Christ had been left alone in the darkness. He’d suffered horrifically in those last hours because of His love, but instead of bitterness, He chose to forgive.
And it was His forgiveness that changed everything.
A blue coupe pulled in front of Quenby, and she stood as the front gate opened. Sighing, she hurried to the driver’s side of the car, hoping that Mrs. McMann was inside. Confrontations like this were her least favorite part of the job, but necessary if someone refused to communicate with her via e-mail or phone.
A woman in her seventies was driving the car, her eyes shaded by sunglasses. She inched down her window as Quenby stepped up beside her.
Quenby smiled. “Good afternoon.”
The woman didn’t return the greeting. “You’re not from this area.”
“I live in London.”
“But you’re from America.”
Quenby nodded, sticking her hands into the pockets of her denim jacket. “The state of Tennessee. On the eastern side of the US.”
“I know where Tennessee is,” the woman snapped.
“My name is Quenby Vaughn. I’m trying to speak with Mrs. McMann.”
The woman removed her sunglasses, her eyebrows bowed into two sickles above her glare. “Did you not receive my e-mail?”
“I did, but—”
“Then you will return to London this afternoon and tell your supervisor that there will be no story written about my mother or any other member of the Ricker family.”
The car crept forward, and Quenby followed it toward the gate. “Was someone else in your family spying for Germany as well?”
Mrs. McMann braked again before lowering her window farther. “I don’t know what fantasy you and your syndicate are trying to create, Miss Vaughn, but there’s no story here, at least not one based on facts.”
“Your mother was interviewed by an advisory committee in 1948 about suspicions that she assisted the enemy. If she was innocent, then she was the victim of a witch hunt.”
“My mother was no witch.”
“I’m only after the truth, Mrs. McMann. If you tell me her story, I’ll set the record straight.”
The woman stiffened. “Don’t try and teach me how to suck eggs.”