Page 7

POLLY

The man was sitting on the bench that faced the old mill and the river. He wasn’t looking in that direction, though. He sat at an angle, gazing intently at the bakery, clearly watching for Rissa.

Polly hesitated, then slowly sat next to him, almost afraid that he would turn and stare at her. Ask her why she had followed him. What it was she wanted.

She shook her head impatiently. She was being daft, and she knew it. If her heart could beat, she imagined it would be drumming furiously right now, and she wasn’t even sure why.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. If she was being honest with herself, she knew why. It was that voice. That refined, polite voice with the accent. Not as noticeable as his had been. Much fainter, as if this man had lived in England a long time.

It had given her such a turn, coming out of the blue like that. She’d just been sitting there at the table in the teashop, idly listening to two old ladies nattering on about the mundane, ordinary things in their lives.

One’s hip was giving her trouble. The other had rheumatism in her hands. They couldn’t believe how much the price of their groceries had gone up over the last few years.

Both agreed that this country was going to the dogs and it had all started with those terrible hippies and the concept of free love back in the 1960s.

Polly’s mind had started to wander at that point, moving from memories of the 1960s back to the 1940s.

She’d thought about Pippa’s article in The Courier and smiled to herself as she imagined the village transported back in time, with vintage cars lined up along the street, and all the other things Callie and Brodie had planned for the weekend event.

She hadn’t taken any notice when the man walked in, barely glancing up at him when the bell above the teashop door jangled. But then he’d spoken to Shona, and she’d jerked up in shock, her head whipping round to get a better look at him, because surely, surely he couldn’t be who…

Of course he wasn’t. How could he be, after all this time? But she hadn’t been able to stop herself from following him out of the teashop, curious to get a better look at him.

Now, as she sat so close to him on the bench, she could see that he was nothing like him. This man wasn’t blond for a start. He didn’t have blue eyes. He was broader, and older. And he didn’t have that look about him. That look Polly would never forget.

‘Larissa!’

She jumped as he leapt to his feet and darted towards the bakery. Rissa and Erin had just come out of Blighty’s, bulging carrier bags swinging from each of their hands, as if they’d bought up half the shop.

Rissa paled. ‘Dad!’

Erin raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s your dad?’

‘Larissa, what are you doing here?’ He sounded odd, Polly thought. Sort of angry and sort of shaky at the same time. ‘Here, of all places!’

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, a crimson flush flooding the face that just moments ago had been white.

‘I saw the article,’ he said heavily. ‘I couldn’t believe it. You lied to me, Rissa. All this time, you lied to me.’

Erin cleared her throat. ‘Er, I’ll meet you back at the farm,’ she said. ‘Shall I take your bag?’

Rissa nodded dumbly and handed her friend the carrier bag. Erin gave the man a curious look then headed towards the mill, rounding the corner and disappearing from view.

Polly realised she’d twisted a strand of her hair tightly around her forefinger and unravelled it immediately. She was intrigued. What did he mean, Here, of all places ?

‘London,’ the man growled. ‘You said you were living in London. How long has this deception been going on? Please, no more lies. At least do me the courtesy of some honesty at last.’

‘Do we really have to do this, Dad?’

‘We do. And if you don’t give me some answers, maybe I will ask other people. The person in the bakery, perhaps? Or that lady in the teashop. Maybe I will go back to Rowan Farm and discuss the situation with your employers over tea and cake?’

Rissa glanced around warily then slumped. ‘Okay, you win. Let’s sit on that bench, but please, please keep your voice down, okay?’

Polly hastily shuffled over as the two of them headed back towards her. Rissa and her father sat in silence for a few moments. Polly was almost sure she could hear Rissa’s heart thudding, and she could certainly see the man’s jaw pulsing as if he was trying very hard to stay calm.

She wondered who would break the silence first.

‘How could you do this thing, Rissa?’

He turned to face his daughter, and Polly’s eyes softened as she saw his own eyes were gleaming with unshed tears.

Even as she felt a pang of sympathy for him, she felt something else too.

Her stomach rolled and she stood up, pacing up and down as she tried to calm herself.

What on earth was wrong with her? This man wasn’t him.

She had no reason to connect them, apart from the fact that they had a similar accent. She needed to get a grip.

‘Focus, woman,’ she muttered to herself. ‘This is just a bit of gossip, that’s all. Something for me to take back to Shona later on.’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Rissa said, folding her arms.

‘Try me. I want to understand. I want to understand how you could tell your own father that you were living and working in London when, according to the interview those people gave, you have been working as a land girl on their farm and are a – what did they call you now – “much-valued member of the team”.’

Rissa closed her eyes. ‘Bloody Betty and her big mouth.’

The man gasped. ‘That’s all you have to say? You blame your employer for letting the cats out of the bag?’

‘Cat,’ Rissa said sullenly. ‘And don’t get indignant on her behalf. I heard the scornful way you said, “ those people ”. I can imagine all too well what you thought when you read who Betty was.’

‘Exactly! And yet, you choose to work for her! Don’t pretend that it’s of no consequence.

We both know that if you truly believed that, you wouldn’t have lied to me all this time.

I was just a few miles away, Rissa. A few miles!

Yet you made me meet you in London. You told me you shared a flat with a friend.

You took me there for lunch! I’m at a loss to understand why you would do so many terrible things. ’

‘I did share a flat with a friend for a few months,’ Rissa protested. ‘I only got the job on the farm eighteen months ago. That wasn’t a lie exactly. I just didn’t tell you when I moved on, that’s all.’

Her father narrowed his eyes and Polly watched, fascinated despite her unease. What on earth was the problem? Why did he resent Rissa working in Rowan Vale, and at Rowan Farm in particular? And what could he possibly have against Betty, of all people? She was a lovely woman. Salt of the earth.

Polly didn’t like the way this man spoke about her at all. She’d like to give him a piece of her mind, being so rude and insulting. No wonder Rissa didn’t exactly confide in him, poor girl. Maybe that was why she could be so rude and offish. Her dad hadn’t exactly set her a good example, had he?

‘But even if that’s true, why would you want to work at Rowan Farm? You know what happened there! You know how badly they behaved!’

‘Dad, that was bloody decades ago!’

‘Don’t swear at me, Rissa.’

‘Sorry. But come on. Nick and Betty weren’t there then. You can’t blame them.’

‘In the article, it says Betty is the granddaughter of Alfred and Helen Rowland.’

Polly’s hand flew to her mouth. Alf and Helen had managed the farm back in her day. What did they have to do with this man? With Rissa?

‘So what if she is?’ Rissa cried. ‘Betty’s all right. She’s not them.’

‘They have men at the farm, don’t they? Men masquerading as prisoners of war for entertainment! For the tourists to stare at, as if it’s all some big joke.’

Polly knew she couldn’t actually be sick, but it sure as heck felt like she was going to be.

‘Dad, it’s really not like that,’ Rissa said with a sigh.

‘I’ve looked at the website,’ her father said. His tone was cold, distant. He wasn’t looking at his daughter any longer. He stared ahead of him and for a moment, Polly had an awful, sickening feeling that he was staring straight at her.

But of course, he wasn’t. Instead, he was gazing into the middle distance, and she had the feeling he was struggling to contain his thoughts, to choose his words carefully.

‘When I read the article, I checked my facts before I came here. They have turned what happened here into some sort of entertainment. But we know the truth, Rissa. We know what happened here in those dark days. We know what really happened to those poor men.’

‘We don’t really know,’ Rissa protested. ‘Grandma was just guessing.’

‘My mother cared for my grandfather in his dying days. She saw how distressed he was. I saw it myself! I saw him cry, Rissa! You think we made this up? You think he lied?’

‘He was ill, Dad,’ she said gently. ‘Old and ill. He was rambling. We don’t know?—’

‘Don’t make excuses, Rissa, please.’ The man slumped and rubbed his forehead wearily.

‘This place…’ He gazed around him and said softly.

‘It is so beautiful, and yet beneath the surface, it is ugly. It has an ugly history. I don’t want you working here.

I don’t want you to live here. I want you to come home with me and look for another job. Get away from this place.’

Rissa gave a bitter laugh and shook her head. ‘I like it here.’

‘If you won’t do it for me,’ he pleaded, ‘at least do it for him! For his memory!’

‘I never met Great-Grandpa,’ Rissa pointed out desperately.

‘I’m sorry, Dad, but it’s true. He’s just a name to me, and that’s partly why I came here.

I know how much he meant to you, and I wanted to be where he spent those years.

I don’t want him to be just a name. I want to know who the real Gerhard Janssen was and?—’

Polly didn’t hear the rest of her words. She reeled back, feeling as if she couldn’t catch her breath, which was crazy because she hadn’t taken a breath in years.

Dazed, she walked slowly to the river and stared across the water, over the fields towards where Rowan Farm lay.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, hearing again her own voice pleading for mercy.

The pistol shot. The sudden, excruciating pain.

The biting cold that seeped through her body from the hard, frost-bitten ground into her bones.

The nauseating, metallic smell of the blood that seeped out of her body into the land.

The shock and the fear that gave way to a strange calmness and acceptance.

It had been so long, and she’d done such a good job of keeping those memories at bay. But hearing his name again…

And this man was Gerhard Janssen’s grandson. Rissa was his great-granddaughter. All this time, she’d been living in the same village as Polly and Polly hadn’t known. Hadn’t guessed.

She crouched down, her arms wrapping tightly around her knees, and watched a family of ducks swimming further along the river.

Tourists were laughing and snapping photos of them on their mobile phones.

Some of them held the phones up and took pictures of the mill behind Polly, marvelling at how picturesque the water wheel looked as it turned.

‘What a gorgeous place this is,’ one of them said. ‘Like something from another age.’

It has an ugly history , Gerhard’s grandson had said.

Polly couldn’t deny that. Her own death was proof of it. But things were never as simple as they seemed…