The Frozen Lake: A gripping novel of family and wartime secrets. Elizabeth Edmondson

fed up with remarks about things going down the pan. He’s at home, therefore, in disgrace, but he doesn’t care a bit; he hates school.

      Anyhow, that’s not all. Exquisite Eve (my new name for my awful stepmother, don’t you like it?) has set her mind against Hal, don’t ask me why, and says he shouldn’t have just announced he was coming but should have waited to be invited. He’d have had to wait a jolly long time in that case. Aunt Angela says, ‘Rot, it’s his home,’ or words to that effect, but Eve isn’t pleased. Then a cable came from Lisbon mentioning the name of his ship, the SS Gloriana. When Uncle Roger heard that, he cried out, ‘That’s not on the Atlantic run, it’s a P&O vessel and goes to and from India and Australia.’ So that’s got them even more worked up, did he get the letters about the shares that they sent to New York, and what on earth could he be doing in Australia and India? As if no one ever went there before, which of course they do, all the time.

      My stepsister Rosalind will be turning up from her finishing school in Munich. You haven’t met her, but I’ve told you how ghastly she is – well, she would be, with exquisite Eve for a mother. Daddy thinks she’s wonderful, he goes on and on about her poise and beautiful manners and grooming – you’d think she was a horse. Only she isn’t, she’s frightfully pretty in a boring, brittle sort of way, and very affected. She behaves as though the Hall is a leftover from the Middle Ages (she’s got a point there), and treats me like I was some kind of a peasant. Simon can’t take his eyes off her, I never saw anything so soppy, and he won’t hear a word against her. He’s home from Cambridge, and gloomy as usual, he knows that Daddy won’t hear of him joining the army after university; the eldest son has to go into the business, and that’s that. Honestly, my brothers, what a pair, but at least Nicky isn’t at all struck by the fair Rosalind. Just wait till you see her.

      Must finish, or there’ll be so many pages you won’t be able to flush them down the lav, hope it’s a Jowetts, we need to keep the money coming in to pay for Rosalind’s expensive clothes and Eve’s beauty treatments. Oh, and guess what, we’re going to have a dance over Christmas, hooray, but it’s in honour of Rosalind’s seventeenth birthday. It makes me sick. Catch Daddy ever giving a dance in my honour.

      Can’t wait to see you and have a really good talk about it all, xxx

      PS Cecy says she’s been trying to persuade E’s twin (better not mention her name) to come back for Christmas. I hope she does.

       SIX

       London, Bloomsbury

      Edwin had met Lidia on the steps of the Photographic Institute in London. To be exact, he had tripped over her; she had been on her knees, scrubbing, and he hadn’t been looking where he was going.

      ‘Blöder Idiot,’ she exclaimed.

      ‘Oh, Entschuldigung, ich habe Sie nicht gesehen,’ he replied, startled. ‘I’ve knocked over your bucket,’ he continued in English.

      ‘It is nothing,’ she muttered, getting to her feet and wiping her hands on her worn crossover apron. Why was the man staring at her like that?

      ‘I am sorry,’ he said again. ‘May I take the bucket in for you?’

      She clutched the bucket to her chest, and backed away. ‘No, no. It would be most unsuitable.’

      Edwin didn’t give a fig about what was or wasn’t suitable. He took the bucket firmly from her and followed her down the basement steps to deposit it in the area. Then he went back up to the pavement, and, lighting a cigarette, took up a position by the railings.

      He didn’t have long to wait before she came up the steps, dressed now in a shabby, dark coat and a nondescript hat. ‘Oh,’ she said, when she saw him. ‘Why are you still here?’

      ‘I’m waiting for you. Have you finished your work for now? Then I shall buy you a cup of coffee. No, don’t protest, it’s the least I can do after sending your bucket flying.’

      He walked her quite a way, to a place he knew of near Harrods. A Hungarian pastry chef had opened a hugely successful tea room, where his exquisite cakes and pastries were bought and sampled by appreciative members of the upper classes.

      She didn’t hang back at the door, despite her poor clothes, but lifted her chin and went in. The proprietor eyed her with momentary disapproval, then took in the well-cut, if casual, clothes of her companion and ushered them to a table.

      Edwin ordered coffee and pastries. ‘I don’t have to ask a Viennese if she likes these,’ he said with a smile.

      ‘How do you know I come from Vienna?’

      ‘Your accent. I studied in Vienna for a while.’

      ‘You don’t have a Viennese accent.’

      ‘No, I learnt my German as a child, from a German governess.’

      ‘Do you always stare at people? Isn’t this rude, for an Englishman?’

      He wasn’t at all abashed. ‘I’m a photographer. I always stare when I see something or someone I want to take photographs of.’

      The light died out of her face, and her big dark eyes became wary. ‘Photographs?’

      ‘Not the kind you’re thinking of,’ he said quickly. ‘Nothing distasteful or dishonourable.’

      That was what she was thinking, of course. You didn’t arrive as a penniless but attractive refugee to any country without certain suggestions being made to you. Had she chosen that route, she would never have had to scrub a step, and she wouldn’t be wearing these clothes. She said no more, but took a bite of her Marillenkuchen and with that delicious apricot mouthful, all her memories of Vienna, pushed so resolutely out of her mind, came flooding back. She smiled.

      She couldn’t help it, and she couldn’t have dreamt of the effect it would have on Edwin, who sat transfixed, gazing at her with blank astonishment.

      He had thought she had an interesting face. The arrangement of cheekbones and nose and mouth appealed to him, as an artist, not as a man. Now he was overwhelmed.

      She didn’t want to meet him again, didn’t want to be photographed, wanted to be left alone. She didn’t notice him following her through dingy streets to a house in Bloomsbury. As she put her key in the lock of the front door, which badly needed a coat of paint, she looked around and up and down the street, as though she sensed his eyes upon her; he had ducked behind a parked van, and she didn’t see him.

      He sauntered around the corner and went into a shop that announced itself as a newsagent and tobacconist. A small man with a moustache stood behind the counter, and he greeted Edwin in a voice that held a trace of a foreign accent. Edwin bought a paper and a packet of cigarettes.

      There were no other customers in the shop, and it wasn’t hard to fall into conversation with the man. Edwin’s relaxed, unassertive ways encouraged people to talk to him, and in no time at all, he had the rundown on everyone in Cranmer Street, including the inhabitants of number sixteen. The owners of the house were an elderly couple, who let out rooms to add to a meagre pension. Their only lodgers at present were a young married couple. The man was English, his wife from Austria. Also staying there for some weeks now was the wife’s sister, recently arrived from Vienna.

      ‘A musician,’ the little man said, his eyes gleaming with pleasure. ‘She plays the piano. For hours. Bach, mostly, and Scarlatti. Beautiful, beautiful.’ Then the eyes became watchful. ‘You are from the authorities, perhaps?’

      ‘Good heavens, no,’ Edwin said, taken aback. ‘Do I look like a policeman?’

      ‘It is not only the police, but there are Home Office officials, who come and ask unpleasant questions in areas like this. There are a lot of foreigners here. But Mrs Jenkins, the musician’s sister, is