Page 129 of The Stranger in Room Six
‘Mabel received this in the post today. Anything to do with you?’
My old cellmate reads it out loud.
‘FASCIST TRAITORS MUST DIE. YOUR SINS WILL BE PUNISHED.
‘Of course not,’ she says. ‘But you’ve done well, Belinda. I’ll pass on this information.’
‘To who?’
‘I’ve told you. I can’t say.’
I try to snatch the note back but she’s too quick for me.
‘OK. I’m going to tell the police.’
Alarm crosses Mouse’s face. ‘You can’t do that. It could send us back to prison.’
I shudder at the thought. ‘Then tell me what’s going on.’
She sighs. ‘The boss – and I mean, thebigboss – wants to bring Harry Marchmont down.’
‘So why do you want this list?’
‘You don’t need to know that.’
I run out of the room, shaking. I won’t let them get my family or Mabel, whoever ‘they’ are. There’s only one thing to be done. It’s a big risk but I have to tell Harry Marchmont about the note. I would do anything – well, almost anything – to protect Mabel’s life.
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 thebigboss. 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.’
