Page 103 of The Stranger in Room Six

The threatening note was my idea. I’d hoped it might push the old lady into confessing all. But so far, nothing has happened. Still, at least Belinda has given me some useful information about Mabel’s part in the war. If only we had the list too.

I’d brushed her ‘So why do you want this list?’ question away because my bosses have told me not to reveal anything to outsiders.

In fact, the list is a collection of names, all of whom were ‘persons of interest’ to the authorities back during the war.

Some were members of Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, and many were sympathetic to Hitler, hoping a German victory would ‘make Britain great again’.

Different counties had different lists. The Devon one was stolen from the county archives near the end of the war and never found.

‘Surely they had a copy?’ I’d asked my boss.

‘Just a paper one, which they think was stolen too.’

‘So why didn’t the thieves just destroy it?’

‘It was proof that they were loyal to Hitler’s cause. This would have helped them if Germany had won the war although it could have led to imprisonment or death if the English had been the victors, which, thank God, they were. Get it?’

Of course I got it. People think serving time means you’re stupid, but they underestimate me.

So, who stole the list? The thief was Lord Dashland, also known as the Colonel.

How do we know? Because Lord Bedmont, who was also on it, revealed this on his death bed to his grandson.

And how do we know that? Because the grandson is my boss.

And I mean the big boss. He’s also a billionaire businessman, who can’t afford for Harry Marchmont’s politics to make their way into Number 10.

It feels like a lot of fuss over nothing, right? Wrong.

I need to find that list so that Bedmont can remove his family name, save his reputation, and then ruin Harry Marchmont in the process. Two birds, one stone.

That’s why I’m here at Sunnyside. Lord Jonty Dashland hands this list to his lover Clarissa, and who does she pass it on to? Her one living relative: Mabel Marchmont. So, this old lady is my client’s last chance.

Or should I say our last chance? Because if Belinda and I can’t come up with the goods, we’ll be taken out. It makes sense. We know too much.

In the wrong hands, that list could be dynamite. Memories of the war still rankle and some whose relatives were killed might well carry grievances. But they’ve had eighty years to do so, I point out to my boss. Why start now?

‘Because of the rising profile of the neo-Nazis,’ he tells me.

‘It has all kinds of implications for society, businesses and politics. That’s why your information about Mabel Marchmont being involved is so crucial.

It will discredit Harry Marchmont’s name, which is just what my boss wants to save his business.

We’re about to leak it to the papers now.

Meanwhile, keep looking for that list. The powers that be are terrified of being outed. ’

Two hours later, my phone bleeps with an online news update. The shit has hit the fan.

brEAKING NEWS

It has emerged that ninety-eight-year-old Mabel Marchmont – the half-sister of prime ministerial contender Harry Marchmont – worked for Hitler during the Second World War.

Miss Marchmont grew up in a Devon mansion, which she now runs as a luxury nursing business, the Sunnyside Home for the Young at Heart.

However, we have learned that the house was a base for members of the illegal BUF movement (also known as Blackshirts), many of whom supported Hitler.

These are said to have included Miss Marchmont’s own parents Lady Clarissa Sinclair and Lord Jonty Dashland who, unusually for the time, were not married.

The same source insists that Miss Marchmont worked underground with illegal BUF campaigners, delivered anti-government propaganda and helped a German spy land on English soil.

How much of this did Harry Marchmont know?

This is a man who has personally invested in Sunnyside, which, as he must surely be aware, was built on blood money left to Mabel by her pro-Hitler parents.

Does the country really want a prime minister whose blood is stained by evil – and whose success is built on fascist money?

And would you, our readers, be happy to put your loved ones into a home that holds some of the Second World War’s darkest secrets?