Dilys would have been surprised had she known that James had noticed something unusual was happening because of the activity in his old surgery. During the past few days, when he had seen Birgit going in and out of that wing of the house, he had grown increasingly anxious that clients were bringing in their animals for him to examine and he was not there to attend to them. Such thoughts, though, seldom lasted more than a minute or two.
James was now sitting in the kitchen by the window, watching the ducks as they waddled in a line across the newly cut lawn. He felt a little uneasy without knowing why. Birgit seemed to be so busy, and Dilys, too. There was an air of excitement in the house. Somewhere in his brain he remembered being told that it was Tina’s birthday. It worried him that he had not bought the child a present. He was fond of the girl – a pretty little thing, and she was always happy chatting to him.
Turning his head, he saw Birgit go once more into his old surgery. Again he felt confused. One part of his brain told him that he no longer used his surgery, that it was a long time since he had been a vet, that he had been in hospital, ill, and his memory was not as good as it used to be. Nevertheless, people should not be in that room. He’d closed it up and locked it. It didn’t really make much sense. The house was certainly big enough for the three of them that lived in it. He must ask that girl why she was going in there so often when she next came into the kitchen.
The confusion in James’ mind was such that he decided it was high time he got back to work. Putting down his unread newspaper, he made his way to the surgery. There was no sign of Birgit.
Birgit was standing at the front door watching for the cars to arrive. She wanted to make sure that Dilys was the first to go into the surgery and not young Tina or the other children she had brought with her from school. Her heart was beating furiously as she heard the noise of the cars turning into the drive. She was unaware that James was about to open the surgery door.
As Dilys drove into the drive, at the same moment James opened the surgery door. He had no time to register the brightly coloured party decorations, or hear the shocking noise of the explosion which instantly killed him.
On the doorstep, Birgit heard the noise of the violent explosion. Clapping her hand over her mouth, the colour drained from her cheeks; she realized there had been a ghastly mistake. Never once had she contemplated that someone else would open the door and set off the skilful explosion she had learned to engineer during the war when she had been in the Norwegian Resistance.
The young Swedish girl, Birgit, was still safe and sound in America, where Gerda had also gone to work as an au pair when she’d realized there was no hope that Kristoffer would return to Norway and marry her. After months of deliberation, Gerda had stolen Birgit’s passport with the intention of going to England, determined to rid herself of the one barrier to her neurotic need to possess the man she loved and, in order to do so, to kill Dilys.
Once she had arrived from America, using Birgit’s passport, Gerda had registered with a domestic agency in Oxford, asking if there was any chance of employment in a local school. Fate had played into her hands. Una had only three weeks previously asked the agency to find an au pair for Dilys. There being no domestic vacancies at the school, would she consider this instead, they asked Gerda.
It was, she told herself, a sign that God had always intended Kristoffer to be hers. Once installed in Dilys’ home, she was quite happy to wait for the right moment to carry out her plan. The knowledge of explosives she had acquired in the Norwegian Resistance was at the forefront of her mind. She had no wish to harm James or the child, and it was when Tina’s birthday party was planned that she saw her opportunity to finally dispose of Dilys once and for all.
It was six months before the truth came to light. Gerda had managed to escape in Dilys’ car but had forgotten that in the British Isles drivers used the left-hand side of the road. After the inevitable car accident that ensued, she was taken to hospital and the terrible truth emerged.
Sadly, it was Gerda’s parents who suffered most as a consequence of their daughter’s horrifying actions and the fact that she would no longer be a part of their lives. Fru Holberg blamed herself for writing those regular letters to Gerda in California reiterating that Kristoffer’s love for the English girl was irreversible.
Dilys was so distressed that her parents insisted she close up the house and live at Hannington Hall with them, and that she resign from her job at the school. Tina, young as she was, understood very little of what had happened and remained her usual cheerful self, her only worry being the transfer of her rabbits to her grandparents’ home.
In Norway, Kristoffer was so deeply shocked it did not immediately occur to him that Dilys was now free to marry him.
TWENTY-THREE
Dilys stood at the rail of the ferry as it ploughed its way past numerous small islands, her eyes fastened on the distant port of Bergen. It was a beautiful, clear September morning, the sunshine sending dazzling shafts of light off the surface of the sea. The crossing from Scotland the previous night had been calm and both she and Tina had managed to get a good night’s sleep despite their excitement.
It was seven years almost to the day since she and Kristoffer had said goodbye to one another in pre-war Germany, and three years since their stolen week together during the war. Both of them had believed on that occasion that they would never see each other again.
Momentarily, tears stung Dilys’ eyes as the memory returned of James’ lifeless body lying on the floor of the old surgery and the doctor’s voice saying, ‘I’m so sorry, my dear, but there is nothing I can do for him.’ He had gone on in an attempt to soften the shock by saying that James had been a very sick man with no real quality to his life: that, for him, death would have been a relief as he could only have deteriorated had he lived longer.
Dilys had known the doctor was right but it had taken her nearly six months to get over the shock – not just of James’ death but of learning that the explosion had not after all been accidental but a deliberate attempt by Gerda Magnusson to kill her. People had become accustomed during the war to the so often unexpected loss of life, of whole cities destroyed in horrific bombing raids and the unbelievable revelation of the mass destruction of Jews and gypsies in German concentration camps. Men had died in their thousands in the air, at sea and on land, but James’ death at the hands of the Norwegian girl and her subsequent trial and imprisonment had affected Dilys very deeply.
Recalling those six months, Dilys reflected how much support Una and her parents had given her, her father dealing with all the police and legal problems that had ensued.
The situation had become clear when both passports were discovered. They had been in Gerda’s possession when she had been apprehended.
Were she to have succeeded in escaping in Dilys’ car after the explosion, her real name and guilt might never have come to light for, with Dilys dead, she had planned to return to Norway using her own passport.
What Gerda had not taken into account when she realized she had killed James instead by mistake was that in England drivers used the left-hand side of the road. In her hurry to avoid questioning, she had driven too fast and hit a lorry approaching her on a bend.
Gerda had spent several months recovering in hospital before she had stood trial for dangerous driving, stealing a car and driving without a licence. By then, her use of the Swedish girl’s name and passport had come to light and the police had gathered from her incoherent ramblings that her intention had been to kill Dilys, not James. This fact was confirmed at the trial. Una and Jerzy had been able to verify Dilys’ testimony that Gerda had been attentive, kind and caring towards James, and would have had no reason whatsoever to wish him dead, whereas she’d every reason to want Dilys despatched to another world. After an abortive attempt to kill a prison warder and then herself, Gerda had been sent to Broadmoor for an indefinite period.
‘Honestly, Dil, it isn’t any of your fault!’ Una had repeatedly told he
r. ‘You didn’t know who Birgit really was and you befriended her, trusted her. Suppose she had done something ghastly to Tina! She wanted you dead so she could get Kristoffer, and as for poor James … well, you know that he was never going to get better. I know the accident was terrible but, in some ways, it was a kinder end to his life than just getting slowly worse and worse.’
Recalling those words now, Dilys was no longer in doubt that Una was right. Fortunately Tina had been very little affected. For a start, the Bentley shooting-brake she was in had not yet arrived at the house and, after the incident, she had been allowed to join the boarders at school for the next two weeks, to her intense delight.
Now, half a year later, Dilys had replied to Kristoffer’s many letters, telling him that she would bring Tina to Norway for a holiday. How long that holiday would last was a decision she would make when they met one another again. She knew she had changed … the war, her marriage, Tina … that she had finally grown up. What she did not know was if Kristoffer, too, had changed. In his letters he had had no doubt whatever about his feelings, but so much had happened to both of them that she could not be certain they could go back in time. Some of the wives she knew in Hannington and Fenbury, whose husbands had been abroad throughout the war, were finding it hard to adjust to their return, in most cases to resume their place as head of the household which the wives had been running single-handedly for five or more years without them.
Her reminiscences ceased as she caught sight of Kristoffer waiting on the quayside. As the boat edged nearer she could see his face and arms were tanned a deep brown by the summer sun, contrasting with the open-necked white shirt he was wearing. His trousers were blue, cut in the current American style. Hatless, his tanned face was creased in smiles as he caught sight of her and waved.
It was another twenty minutes before Dilys and Tina disembarked and he came hurrying to their side. Taking her suitcase from her he kissed her cheek, smiled at Tina and said, ‘Welcome! Wikommen to Norway!’ Then, meeting Tina’s curious stare, he held out his hand, his eyes twinkling. ‘And how do you do?’ he asked formally. Then added: ‘I bet you do not even know my name!’
‘Yes, I do!’ Tina replied. ‘Mummy says I met you when I was three. You are Mr Omygod!’
Across the top of Tina’s blonde head, Kristoffer’s glance met Dilys’. They were both smiling.
‘Yes, well, I do have another name,’ Kristoffer said. ‘Here in Norway you could call me For!’
Tina’s large blue eyes widened. ‘Well, that’s just silly!’ she announced. ‘You can’t be four. I’m six and you’re much, much, much older than me. I was six last May but I didn’t have a birthday party because of the ’splosion but Mummy let me be a boarder at the boys’ school and then let me go and stay with Aunt Una in London for a treat instead of my party, and Aunt Una took me to see all the animals at a zoo called Reason’s Park and we met a vet man who used to know the Wounded Man, I mean Daddy, when he was a vet and—’
‘Darling, we can’t stand here talking. You can tell us all about the zoo later!’ Dilys broke in.
‘Yes, we should go!’ Kristoffer said. ‘I thought as it is such a beautiful day that we might stop by the fjord and have a picnic lunch before we go home to meet my parents. What do you think, young ladies?’
Tina giggled and Dilys smiled her agreement. She was beginning to feel as if a huge load was being lifted from her shoulders. This was Kristoffer, the same man she had known and loved since she was in her teens. The long years and events between then and now were quickly vanishing.
Having got through customs, Kristoffer helped them into his car and drove away from the harbour. It crossed Dilys’ mind as he did so that although he had done no more than kiss her cheek, his tone of voice and his expression had been full of love and her heart now leapt in response.
Neither spoke as they drove through the outskirts of Bergen. Leaving the urban suburbs behind them, the road wound up through the hills and then descended towards the sea at Hardangerfjord. From the back seat they could hear Tina’s excited chatter remarking on the strange wooden houses, the forests, the fjord, the little islands, the boats. An hour later Kristoffer stopped the car by a field still full of summer flowers where they ate the picnic lunch Fru Holberg had provided. After packing the utensils away, Kristoffer and Dilys lay down side by side in the warm sunshine, Tina squatting beside them and now chattering excitedly about their voyage to Norway on the ferry. Aware suddenly that Kristoffer’s gaze was on her mother rather than her, she demanded to be told a story.
‘Do you know any good ones, Mr Four?’ she asked. ‘My fav’rits are about princesses. It used to be fairies but the boys at my school said there aren’t any so now my fav’rit is princesses. I’m going to be a princess when I grow up.’
Kristoffer nodded, his face serious as he said, ‘I do have a very special story about a very special princess. I’ll tell it to you, shall I? It goes like this. One day a prince came upon a beautiful seventeen-year-old princess from a foreign country picking flowers in a meadow …’
‘A handsome prince?’ Tina interrupted excitedly.
‘Well, I don’t know if he was all that handsome but he fell instantly in love with the princess and wanted to marry her, but …’
‘But what? Why couldn’t he marry her? Why not?’ Tina demanded impatiently.
‘Well, because all of a sudden a war started in her country and the king, the princess’s father, hurried her back home where she would be safe. The prince wanted to follow her but he didn’t know where she lived. Instead he went off to fight the enemy and tried to forget her.’
‘Yes!’ declared Tina, now hopping from one foot to another. ‘So when the war ended, did he go and find her?’
Kristoffer shook his head. ‘Not for a long time, but he never gave up hope. Then, suddenly, after a long, long, long time …’
‘How long? A hundred years?’ Tina broke in.
‘Perhaps not quite as long as that, but he did find her and …’
‘And he asked her to marry him,’ said Tina, her eyes shining.
‘Yes!’ said Kristoffer and, taking Dilys’ hand in his, he said, ‘Please will you marry me, Princess?’
‘No, not like that!’ Tina shouted excitedly. ‘You have to go down on one knee and take her hand and put a ring on her finger and—’ She broke off, her eyes even wider as she turned to her mother. ‘Lend Mr Four your ring, Mummy; the one you wear round your neck.’
She watched with a delighted smile as Kristoffer took the ring Dilys removed and handed to him and, bending down on one knee, said softly, ‘Most beautiful of all princesses, will you give me your hand in marriage?’
Slowly, their eyes locked and Dilys nodded.
‘Say yes, Mummy. You have to say yes,’ Tina urged. Smiling, Dilys did so.
Tina drew a long, satisfied sigh. ‘That was a good story,’ she pronounced. ‘I always like it when it ends “and they lived happily ever after”.’ She paused briefly and then sighed. ‘I wish you lived in our country, Mr Four. Then you could come and tell me lots of good stories …’
‘I’ve got a better idea!’ Kristoffer said. ‘Why don’t you and Mummy stay in my country? We could build a big house which would be our palace and I’d be king and Mummy would be queen and you’d be the princess!’
Tina’s eyes widened as she turned to Dilys. ‘What do you think, Mummy? I know it’s only pretend but I’d like being a princess and I could wear my pink party dress what I wore at Aunt Una’s wedding and—’
‘And I think it’s a wonderful idea!’ Dilys broke in, her gaze meeting Kristoffer’s.
‘It’s the way a good story should end,’ Kristoffer said, looking into his small daughter’s blue eyes. ‘You know, the king and queen get married and they all live happily ever after.’
‘But aren’t you and Mummy too old to be king and queen?’ she asked anxiously.
Kristoffer shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I think Mummy and I are just you
ng enough,’ and was rewarded by his small daughter’s radiant smile.
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