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Talking to Dad had to wait until after my shift at the teashop. By the time I left The Quicken Tree, I barely had time to rush home, get changed, and run a comb through my hair before heading back out, so it was just a brief, ‘Hello, Goodbye,’ to my dad before I dashed off to work.

That evening, I cooked him his favourite dinner: steak and ale pie with mashed potatoes, broccoli, green beans and gravy. That, I thought, should put him in a good mood and make him more receptive to my gentle questioning.

‘Well, love,’ he said, laying down his knife and fork after eating the very last mouthful, ‘that was fantastic. Thank you very much. I could do with a nap now.’

He grinned at me but taking a nap was the last thing I wanted him to do!

‘Go into the living room,’ I said, ‘and I’ll make us both a nice strong cup of tea to wash it all down with. I thought we could watch that film you wanted to see later. You know, the one with Clint Eastwood?’ I mentally groaned at the thought of it, but I wanted to keep him in a good mood.

‘By, you’re spoiling me tonight,’ he said, raising an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Should I be suspicious?’

‘Of course not!’

He watched me in silence for a few minutes as I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher.

‘You never told me how you got on at Rowan Farm,’ he said abruptly. ‘Judging by the way you’re fussing round me tonight, I’m guessing you’ve got a few things you want to get straight with me.’

With my back to him, I rolled my eyes as it occurred to me that I’d never been able to fool him yet, and clearly that wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

Slowly, I turned to face him. ‘As a matter of fact, Dad?—’

‘I knew it,’ he said heavily. ‘Betty’s told you, hasn’t she?’

I gave him my most innocent expression. ‘Told me what?’

‘Don’t give me that,’ he said. ‘Something wasn’t right about that alibi her grandad gave the German, and everyone knew it.’

‘Did she tell you that?’ I asked.

‘She didn’t. My dad told me what had gone on in the village at the time, with all the suspicion that fell on Alf Rowland.

He personally thought it was a disgrace, and said Alf was a good man who would never do such a thing, but then your grandad could be very naive at times.

I’ve always found,’ he said darkly, ‘that what they say is true. No smoke without fire, an’ all that.

I liked Alf and Helen and I don’t think for a moment that they did anything bad to Gerhard Janssen, like that Max fella was insinuating.

But as to the alibi they gave him. Well.

I think there’s more to that than meets the eye. ’

‘So can we finally talk about it?’ I asked. ‘Because for as long as I can remember, our Aunt Polly’s murder has been a taboo subject, and that really needs to change if you ask me.’

‘Knew it,’ he said. ‘Steak and ale pie and Clint Eastwood? Bound to be an ulterior motive.’

‘Go and sit down, Dad,’ I said, ‘and I’ll bring those cups of tea in.’

He didn’t argue but headed into the living room, muttering something under his breath that I couldn’t catch. I fervently hoped Aunt Polly wouldn’t turn up unannounced, because if we were going to discuss the night of her murder, I definitely didn’t want her to walk in on that.

I quickly made the cups of tea then carried them into the living room, where I set them carefully on the coffee table. I sat down and looked at Dad expectantly.

He gave me a sideways glance. ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked, a bit snappily.

‘I want you to tell me what you know about the night Aunt Polly was killed,’ I said firmly. ‘We’ve had Betty’s version and don’t ask me to tell you anything about that because we promised we wouldn’t. But we really need to know what you’ve got to say about it all.’

‘Oh,’ Dad said, reaching for his cup, ‘it’s we now, is it? Since when?’

‘You were very frosty earlier when you found out I was helping Max,’ I said.

‘Why? All he wants to do is clear his grandfather’s name, and that’s not much to ask, is it?

And why don’t you want to know who killed Aunt Polly?

Does she really not know? Did none of you know?

There must have been more suspects around at the time than this mythical vagrant. ’

‘How should I know?’ he demanded. ‘I wasn’t even born then!’

‘But you do know something,’ I persisted. ‘I can see it in your face.’

‘Nope. Not like you’re thinking anyway. You think I know who killed her, don’t you? I don’t. But I’ll be honest, to my way of thinking, it had to be Gerhard Janssen. I’ve always thought so and I don’t see any reason to change my mind now.’

‘But why? What motive would he have?’

‘What motive would anyone have?’ he demanded.

‘You know your Aunt Polly. She’s a lovely woman and everyone loved her when she was alive.

My dad told me she didn’t have an enemy in the world, and I believe him.

She was the light in our family, she really was.

Her mum and dad adored her. Uncle Ray and Dad worshipped her, and Charlie too.

She was liked by the people she worked with on the farm and later at the teashop.

She had friends. Charlie’s parents loved her. Who would want to kill her?’

‘No one, it seems,’ I said.

‘Exactly! Which makes me think it had to be someone who’d no attachment to her. Someone she barely knew, if at all. What I think,’ he said, leaning towards me, his brow furrowed, ‘is that she came across that German fella doing something he shouldn’t, and he killed her to shut her up.’

‘Something he shouldn’t? Like what?’

‘Who knows? But I’ll bet he was up to no good. They should have sent them back to Germany after the war, not kept them prisoner in this country.’

‘Dad!’

‘What? I mean as much for their sake as ours. They wanted to go home, most of them. Only natural. Why should they have to stay and help rebuild our country when their own was in pieces? It wasn’t fair, and there was quite an outcry about it, you know.

My dad told me that people lobbied the government, saying it was cruel to keep them here.

And illegal, too. Broke some sort of international rule or agreement or something.

It was bound to cause resentment among the Germans, wasn’t it?

If he got fed up and started doing stuff he shouldn’t, and then Polly came across him, well, he’d have panicked, wouldn’t he?

If she’d told anyone, he’d have gone to prison or worse, and then he’d never get home.

When Polly tried to run away, he shot her. That’s what I reckon anyway.’

I nibbled my thumbnail, thinking. It was possible, of course.

I had no idea what Gerhard was like. I only had Max’s word that he was a gentle, kind man who wouldn’t dream of shooting anyone outside of military combat.

But Max hadn’t known his grandfather at that age, had he?

People mellowed as they grew older. Maybe Gerhard had been a very different person back in the forties.

‘What did your dad tell you?’ I asked. ‘What happened that night? And afterwards, with the family, I mean. I want to understand what was going on back then.’

He lifted his cup of tea and sighed. ‘Does it really matter after all this time?’

‘How can you say that? For one thing, Polly never got justice, and that’s not fair. For another, Gerhard Janssen might be innocent of this and it’s wrong that some people believe he killed her. Mentioning no names,’ I added, giving him a hard stare.

‘All I know is what my dad told me,’ he said.

‘But if you’re that set on hearing about it, I’ll tell you, although I’d rather you didn’t mention this to Pol.

She doesn’t want to hear it. Never has. Traumatised, like your poor Uncle Ray, I reckon.

Well, waking up and finding yourself dead would do that to a person, wouldn’t it? ’

I couldn’t promise him that I wouldn’t mention anything to Aunt Polly, but luckily, he seemed to take it for granted that I’d agreed to his request.

He took a long sip of tea then settled back on the sofa. ‘Polly was last seen alive in the village at about half-past eight that New Year’s Eve. She was on her way to lay flowers on her mother-in-law’s grave and?—’

‘At half-past eight at night?’ I asked. ‘Funny time to be laying flowers, isn’t it?’

‘Are you going to interrupt me every five minutes?’ he demanded. ‘I might change my mind and put that Clint Eastwood film on now if you’re going to do that.’

‘Sorry, Dad. Go on.’

‘It was New Year’s Eve, remember? Like a lot of war widows, she didn’t have a grave for her husband, what with him being killed abroad, but she wanted to wish him a Happy New Year and his mum was the closest person to him.

Nothing wrong with that. She’d laid flowers on her grave on Christmas Eve too.

That’s just the way she was. Is. Good person, see? ’

I nodded.

‘She bumped into a couple of women from the village who were on their way to The Quicken Tree. They asked her if she was going to join them, but she said she just wanted a quiet night in and was going straight home after she’d visited the grave.

They said goodnight and went on their way.

That was the last time she was seen alive.

’ He took a long drink of tea and sighed. ‘It was my poor dad that found her.’

‘Grandad! I had no idea,’ I gasped.

‘Yeah. He’d been over in Little Barlham cos he was courting a young lass there at the time,’ Dad said. ‘He was on his way back and had cut through the woods, and there she was, lying on the path. Stone dead.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Well, he admitted he got a bit hysterical like. Who wouldn’t? Cradled her in his arms and tried to shake her awake, but it was no use. She’d gone. And then suddenly, there she was in front of him. His sister’s ghost. Can you imagine the shock?’