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‘It would seem so.’ He clearly didn’t think much to that, and I wondered again why he hadn’t known she was working at the farm. Yes, he’d told me he and Rissa were no longer close, but even so that was a big thing to keep from him.

‘It must have been a heck of a shock,’ I said, ‘seeing that interview with Betty in The Courier and realising Rissa was in Rowan Vale, not London.’

‘You could say that.’ He picked up his fork and prodded morosely at his cake. ‘She says it’s just a job, but I wonder. I still think she came here just to punish me for selling our family home. Why else would she work at Rowan Farm?’

‘It’s not that bad!’ I protested. ‘It’s a nice little job, to be honest, and Betty and Nick are so lovely.’ I narrowed my eyes, seeing a shadow pass over him at the mention of Rissa’s employers. ‘What is it? Am I missing something?’

‘No. Nothing.’ He broke off a piece of cake then laid down his fork with a sigh. ‘It’s Rowan Farm. I don’t like the place.’

‘Why ever not?’ I was more than a bit puzzled by his confession. Rowan Farm was a postcard-pretty location. The sort of place that belonged in old Enid Blyton books.

His brow furrowed as he stared at me for a moment, as if debating with himself how much to tell me. Then he leaned back in his chair and said, ‘I perhaps haven’t been so honest with you.’

‘About?’

‘About why I don’t want Rissa working here. About why I want to talk to your father.’

I put my own fork down, my appetite for cake suddenly vanishing. Instead, I took a calming sip of tea. ‘Go on,’ I said. If this involved Dad, I wanted to know what was going on.

‘Rowan Farm has connections with my family,’ he said heavily.

‘My grandfather, Gerhard Janssen, was captured in Normandy and sent to the nearest camp to this place in 1944. It was a camp for the prisoners who were considered safest. Those not indoctrinated with the Nazi beliefs. After a while, he was allowed to work on a farm. Rowan Farm.’

‘Oh.’ I took another sip of tea, thinking. ‘So he probably knew Betty’s grandparents then?’

‘Indeed.’

There was something quite flinty in his tone which surprised me. ‘Is there something else? I still don’t see?—’

He leaned forward, elbows on the table, his clenched fists supporting his chin. ‘I believe he was cruelly treated at the farm, and that must mean he was cruelly treated by Betty’s grandparents. Or her grandfather, at least.’

‘What?’ I could hardly believe that. Everything Aunt Polly had told me about Alf and Helen Rowland had convinced me they were a lovely couple, much like Betty and Nick. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘I loved my grandfather very much,’ he told me. ‘He was a good man. Gentle. Kind. I always detected a sadness within him, though. My mother told me sometimes, he would withdraw into himself and then even her mother couldn’t reach him.’

‘I expect that was the war, and Normandy in particular,’ I said sadly.

‘My Great-Uncle Ray was injured there. He’d seen some terrible things.

Awful. He was never the same again. My dad told me that he had what we’d call PTSD now.

He was in such a state. The owner of the estate back then, Sir Edward, was so concerned, that he got him a job on a farm in Northumberland. You know, a fresh start.’

I didn’t add that hearing the news about Aunt Polly’s murder had set my great-uncle back so much that he never came back to Rowan Vale for the rest of his life, bless him.

‘We can’t begin to imagine what those poor men went through, so it’s no wonder if your grandad was still suffering bouts of depression.

My dad said most men who came back from the war never talked about it.

It was too much for them to deal with. They just pushed it down and tried to pretend it had never happened. ’

‘I understand that,’ he said patiently, ‘but my grandfather wasn’t one of those men.

He did talk about it. He talked about the horrors he’d seen.

He told my grandmother and my mother about Normandy, and his capture.

He even told me about his time in the camp – about the friendships he’d formed there, the guards, the food.

You know the only thing he never talked about? ’

I had an awful feeling I knew what was coming. ‘Rowan Vale?’

‘Exactly.’ He slapped the table with his hand, as if his point had been proven. ‘Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know?’

‘Not really,’ I said doubtfully.

‘When he was dying, he began to murmur things about this place,’ he continued, as if he hadn’t heard me.

‘Most of it didn’t make sense. But he kept crying about the cold and the blood.

Crying, Shona! I had never heard my grandfather cry before.

My mother nursed him in his final days and wrote some of the things he said down in her diary.

I found those diaries after she died, and I read them a few years ago.

I am in no doubt that something traumatic happened here.

Can you imagine how it felt to read that? What did they do to him?’

He snatched up his cup of tea and drained it in one gulp as if it were whisky. I suspected he wished it was.

‘Thing is,’ I said carefully, not wanting to pour scorn on his theory, which he clearly nursed closely to him, ‘people say a lot of things when they’re very ill that just aren’t true.

I don’t think you should believe that what he said while in pain, or perhaps highly medicated, is accurate.

And even if it was, you’ve no proof whatsoever that Betty’s family was involved. ’

To my horror, Max’s eyes filled with tears, and he looked fiercely at me, blinking them away.

‘He was begging for his life! Now do you understand why I think the Rowlands were not such good people? What went on at that farm? Did they treat other prisoners badly or was it just my grandfather? How many people were involved in this?’

I didn’t know what to say. It sounded awful, whatever had gone on.

But Aunt Polly had always spoken fondly of the Rowlands and Dad said the family were lovely.

His own dad and Uncle Ray, Aunt Polly, and my great-grandparents had, at one time or another, worked on the farm, and our two families had a long history together.

I just couldn’t imagine they were capable of doing whatever it was Max’s granddad’s fevered ramblings implied.

‘I can see how it looks,’ I said eventually, realising he was waiting for me to answer, ‘but honestly, there could be a totally innocent explanation for it all. Not least medication. He could have got confused with stuff that happened to him earlier in the war and what happened at Rowan Farm. I mean, he can’t even have been there that long, can he? The war ended the following year.’

‘But the prisoners were not allowed home!’ Max said fiercely.

‘It was 1948 before my poor grandfather returned to Germany. The British government kept their prisoners of war long after the conflict ended, so they could put them to work and force them to help rebuild the country. They needed the labourers, you see? As if they weren’t needed in Germany! ’

I hadn’t known that and realised, rather guiltily, that I’d never talked much about the war and its aftermath to Aunt Polly. But then, it was a tricky subject, what with her losing Uncle Charlie and everything. Not to mention her murder.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, because what else could I say?

His expression softened suddenly, and he laid his hand over mine. ‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get so passionate.’

No, Shona. Now really isn’t the time to dissect that remark or let your mind go wandering.

Max removed his hand, to my regret, and stared into his tea.

‘It’s just, as I say, my grandfather meant a lot to me, as he did to my mother.

It must have been very painful for her to hear all this from him.

I was very moved when I read her diaries.

My sister says we should forget it. That it’s over and done with and there’s no way of ever knowing the truth.

But how can I? Would you forget it if a great injustice had been done to your ancestor? ’

Like getting shot in the back? That was pretty much all I knew about Aunt Polly’s murder. That, and the fact that it had happened in the early hours of New Year’s Day. As 1948 took its first breath, she was taking her last. Had I ever tried to find out what happened? Who’d killed her?

No. The truth was, I’d not really wanted to know.

I knew Dad was protective of Aunt Polly, and he said she’d not seen her killer and didn’t want to talk about it, so I’d just gone with that.

For the first time, I wondered if I should do more.

Should I try to get justice for her, since she seemed to have been forgotten?

What happened to her had been brushed under the carpet. No one made to pay.

I could hardly explain all that to Max, though, so instead, I said, ‘Have you ever visited Chipping Marsham?’

The small town lay about twenty-five miles away and the prisoner of war camp was just outside it. I’d never visited the camp myself, but I thought it might do him good to go and see where his grandfather had stayed.

‘The camp, you mean?’ Max nodded. ‘When I first moved to the Cotswolds, I visited. There really isn’t much to see.

Roofless, derelict, brick buildings, which nature has reclaimed.

There is moss and ivy creeping up what remains of the walls.

Trees grow where men once slept. I didn’t sense my grandfather there. It gave me no peace.’

‘What do you think will give you peace?’ I asked gently.

‘Answers.’ He sighed and rubbed his forehead.

‘I know you think I am wrong, but when I spoke to Betty about my grandfather, when I told her his name, she seemed to know who I was talking about. There was a shift in her attitude. I saw it distinctly. I didn’t imagine it.

Oh, she was perfectly pleasant to me, but something had changed.

But if she does know something, she’s hardly likely to confide in me, is she? ’

‘No. I guess not. Although,’ I added, picking up my fork and digging into the cake as my stomach growled, reminding me that I’d only eaten one mouthful of cake all day and it couldn’t imagine what was going on since this was unheard of, ‘I still think there must be another explanation. Look, maybe I could have a word?—’

‘With Betty?’ His eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘You would do that?’

‘Well…’ I wondered how I got myself into these messes. ‘Yes, okay. I mean, me and Betty get on all right, and I’m sure if I explained what you’d just told me and how worried you are, she’d be able to put our minds at rest.’

‘She might lie,’ he pointed out.

‘I’d know. I’ve known Betty all my life. We went to the same school, although she was two years ahead of me. If she knows something, I’ll see it.’

‘And you’ll tell me?’ he asked. ‘You promise?’

I covered his hand with mine and said, ‘Promise.’ As I saw the hope in his eyes, I said impulsively, ‘Look, why don’t you come with me? Then you’ll know I’m not keeping anything from you, and I’ll know if Betty’s being odd around you.’

He gazed steadily at me for a moment. ‘Thank you. That would give me peace of mind.’

‘Tomorrow morning? It’s my half-day – I don’t start until one. The weather forecast is miserable again, so I don’t think Betty will be busy with tourists. What do you think?’

‘I shall meet you here,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘We shall walk to the farm together.’

‘Smashing,’ I said. ‘Shall we say ten o’clock? Right, now that’s settled, can we please tuck into this cake before it dries up and I have to get some fresh slices?’

He picked up his fork, smiling. ‘Definitely. Suddenly, I have my appetite back.’