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‘New Year’s Day, 1948,’ Betty continued, still refusing to look at me. She jerked her thumb in the vague direction of the door and said, ‘Out in the woods. Young woman. They never caught her murderer.’

Max was dazed for a moment as he clearly tried to grasp her meaning. Then slowly, incredulously, he said, ‘Are you saying that has something to do with my grandfather?’

‘Gerhard Janssen had been welcomed into this family,’ Betty said.

‘He was put to work on the farm, as was another prisoner, Anselm Bauer. They weren’t allowed to fraternise with local families, but even so, they had nothing but kindness shown to them here.

Mind,’ she added, holding her hand up to silence Max before he could even speak, ‘I’m not saying they were so welcome with everyone in the village.

There was a lot of bad feeling still, and some people had lost loved ones in the war.

And people were suspicious, scared. The idea of having two Nazis in the area?—’

‘My grandfather was no Nazi!’ Max burst out.

‘I never said he was,’ Betty said. ‘If there’d been any inkling of that, my grandad wouldn’t have let him near the place.

Besides, that camp over at Chipping Marsham was for low-risk prisoners only.

But to some people, all German soldiers were the enemy, simple as that.

Hard to credit now but that was the mood back then, wasn’t it?

‘Well, the men would do their work and be returned to the camp, but as time went on and the war ended, things changed a bit. By Christmas 1946, they were allowed to have tea at the farmhouse, go into the village, that kind of thing. Mind, they couldn’t go into the shops or the pub or anything like that, but they had a certain amount of freedom, although they had to always wear their prison uniforms so they could be easily identified. ’

She paused and tucked her hair behind her ears.

‘Eventually, they were allowed to stay at the farmhouse, so they did – with certain restrictions, of course. But by late 1947, almost all those restrictions had been lifted, though many of the PoWs had gone back to Germany by then. Some of them wanted to stay and make a new life here in Britain. I don’t know what plans Anselm and Gerhard had made, but I do know feelings towards them in the village had softened by that point, and my grandparents had grown very fond of them. ’

My heart was thudding now. Late 1947? We were creeping very close to the time of Aunt Polly’s murder. What had Gerhard got to do with that?

‘That night – New Year’s Eve – the two of them had joined the celebrations in The Quicken Tree. My grandparents didn’t go with them. They’d never been ones for drinking or the like and, besides, they were used to early nights.’

She puffed out her cheeks and shook her head.

‘Look, I’m telling you now what I’ve been told by my mum, who was told by her mum, all right?

At two o’clock in the morning, or thereabouts, my grandparents were woken up by a loud banging on the door.

My grandad told Grandma to stay in bed and he’d deal with whatever it was.

Well, Grandma did as she was told, but she heard raised voices, and she swore blind one of them was Sir Edward Davenport’s.

‘Now, as I say, this is what Grandma told my mum after Grandad passed away. She reckons that Grandad never came back to bed that night and there were doors opening and closing and muttered conversations for ages. But the upshot of it is this: the following morning, it was all over the village that Polly Herron had been shot dead in the woods.’

‘Polly Herron?’ Max asked, frowning. ‘Herron as in the teashop?’

‘That’s right, although it was Deakin’s Teashop back then. Polly Herron was the manageress.’ Betty gave me a sideways glance and I saw the sympathy in her expression. ‘I’m sorry, lovely.’

Max turned to me, puzzled. ‘Why is she saying sorry to you, Shona?’

‘Because Polly Herron is – was – my great-aunt,’ I said after a short pause.

He exhaled slowly. ‘I see. How terrible for your family. I am sorry for your loss. But I still don’t see?—’

‘It didn’t take long for accusations to start flying,’ Betty continued. ‘Polly was a lovely young woman, and very popular in Rowan Vale. No one wished her any harm. So naturally, thoughts turned to the – well, not to put too fine a point on it – enemy within.’

‘Meaning the Germans, I guess?’ Max said wearily.

She nodded. ‘They were different times back then,’ she said.

‘There was no motive for harming Polly, you see. And the thing was, she’d been shot in the back.

The villagers reckoned no British person would be so cowardly as to shoot a woman in the back.

Therefore, it had to be a foreigner, right?

And there they were, right on the doorstep. Two Germans, no less.’

‘But what motive would they have for killing her?’ Max demanded.

‘Didn’t need a motive,’ she explained. ‘When push came to shove, Gerhard Janssen was an enemy prisoner of war. The war might have been over but all that forgive and forget stuff went straight out of the window when one of our own was killed so brutally.’

‘But Gerhard wasn’t arrested? And what about the other German?’ I asked.

‘Anselm? No, he was off the hook. He’d left The Quicken Tree at ten o’clock and gone back to Briar House, as it was then, with a crowd of other merrymakers.

There were six local men who swore he was with them all night and didn’t even leave the cottage until around four in the morning.

And then two of them walked him back to Rowan Cottage. ’

‘And Gerhard?’

Betty straightened. ‘Well, you see that’s the thing. Gerhard Janssen left the pub at nine o’clock alone. He’d have been for it, but my grandad gave him an alibi. Said he’d been with him in the kitchen at Rowan Farm from about twenty past nine, and they’d brought the new year in together.’

‘So – so my grandfather couldn’t have been involved!’ Max cried, sounding highly relieved.

‘Except my gran knew perfectly well that she’d been sitting in that very kitchen until half-past ten, and the only person who’d been with her was my grandad.

And when she went to bed at twenty to eleven, he went with her, only getting up for that knock on the door.

My grandad,’ she finished heavily, ‘lied to the police. He gave Gerhard Janssen a false alibi and my gran knew it.’

‘But why?’ I said, bewildered. ‘Why would he do that?’

Mitzi leapt onto Betty’s lap and Betty absently rubbed her between her ears.

‘He never discussed it with my gran,’ she said.

‘Shut the subject down entirely. Like I said, it was only after he died that she felt able to confide in my mum about the business, and it nagged away at my mum for years until she finally told me. We couldn’t work it out, but Gran was in no doubt.

She was firmly of the opinion that it was Sir Edward’s doing.

She believes he came to the farmhouse that night – probably with Gerhard Janssen – and put pressure on my grandad to give him an alibi. ’

‘But why would Sir Edward do that?’ I asked. It didn’t make sense. If Sir Edward thought Gerhard guilty, why make Alf Rowland swear he’d been with him? Why protect a murderer? Why cover up for the person who’d killed my lovely Aunt Polly?

‘We were never able to fathom it out,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘If Sir Edward was so sure Gerhard was innocent, why didn’t he give him an alibi?

Why didn’t Gerhard have an alibi, come to that?

Where was he when Polly was shot? No.’ She shook her head fiercely.

‘Something very dodgy about the whole business. But what could Grandad do, eh? My gran never blamed him. Sir Edward owned the farm. Owned their home. Where would they have gone if he’d have said no, and Sir Edward evicted them? ’

‘But you said they were considering leaving the village?’ I remembered. ‘Why was that?’

‘Because before long, people started saying that my grandad must be lying. People wanted the murderer caught. They were afraid. They couldn’t believe one of their own was responsible and Anselm was definitely in the clear.

They wanted to hang it on Gerhard so they could put the whole nasty business to bed and sleep soundly again.

But my grandad’s insistence that he was with Gerhard that night meant it couldn’t be resolved to their satisfaction, so they started muttering that maybe there was something in it for him.

Or maybe Gerhard had threatened him. Either way, they didn’t believe my grandparents were telling the truth and life became a nightmare for them. ’

‘Oh.’ I understood now why it had been such a sore subject for Betty. I could imagine all too well how people had reacted if they believed the Rowlands had given Gerhard a false alibi.

‘Their neighbours and friends turned on them. They were spat at. Called liars and traitors. My gran nearly had a nervous breakdown, and Grandad – well, like I said, he considered leaving Rowan Vale altogether and starting over somewhere new. He was even prepared to take work as a farm labourer to get away. People were making up all sorts. Do you know, they even decided that Hollywood actress, Harmony Hill, had been another victim! It stood to reason, they said. She’d drowned in 1946 only eighteen months before Polly.

And why would she drown in such a shallow river, eh?

The fact that everyone knew she’d been drunk as a skunk the night she died was conveniently forgotten.

It must have been murder and ten to one the German had been responsible for that, too.

By extension, that meant my grandparents were covering for a double murderer, and who knew who’d be his next victim?

‘It was only when the rumour started about some vagrant that had been seen in the place that the focus shifted from Gerhard. People swore they’d seen some dodgy character lurking near the woods, and several people said they’d had things stolen from them in the days before the murder.

Gradually, the consensus shifted, especially when Sir Edward confirmed that his estate manager had chased the vagrant from the land, and that he’d recently discovered that one of his shotguns was missing and had reported it to the police, that everyone decided this person was the killer and left my grandparents alone. ’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I murmured.

‘Not your fault, nor your family’s,’ she said. ‘My family should never have been in that position, but I’ll never believe Grandad would have lied to the police if he hadn’t been pressured to do so and only Sir Edward had that much clout.’

‘But my grandfather…’ Max put his head in his hands, clearly unable to articulate his feelings at that moment.

I felt sorry for him, but there was one thing I wanted to know more than anything.

‘Did your grandparents believe Polly was murdered by Gerhard?’ I asked Betty.

She looked across at Max then back to me. We both waited, and I wondered if his stomach was churning as much as mine.

Betty shrugged. ‘Grandad never mentioned it again as far as I’m aware.

Gran just wasn’t sure. She told my mum that she’d been very fond of Gerhard, but after that business, she couldn’t feel the same.

She couldn’t trust him and never understood why, if he was innocent, he had no real alibi.

Gerhard apparently barely spoke a word to anyone after that night, and he was sent home to Germany in the March, which I’m sure came as a relief to everyone.

But the so-called vagrant was never caught either.

‘Truthfully, I don’t think they ever knew for certain, but I do know that they were angry and disappointed with the villagers, and that they never truly felt at home in Rowan Vale after that, even though, after a while, the locals acted as if they’d never had the slightest suspicion about them.

My grandparents didn’t forget being treated like that. I know that much.’

‘No,’ I murmured. ‘I don’t suppose they did.’

‘It’s just a shame that the one person who should be able to tell us what really happened can’t,’ Betty said, looking at me with meaning in her eyes. ‘If only Polly Herron could speak, eh?’

‘But,’ I said, shaking my head slightly, ‘she was shot in the back so probably didn’t see who her killer was.’

‘Yes,’ Betty sighed, forgetting all about discretion for the moment, ‘that’s what I’d heard, but I always hoped something would come back to her.’

Luckily for us, Max wasn’t even listening. ‘There must be some explanation,’ he mumbled. ‘There has to be.’

Well, obviously there did. But what was it? Had his grandfather really been responsible for the death of my great-aunt? And if so, why had Sir Edward Davenport, of all people, made Betty’s grandad cover for him?