Contrary to his expectations, the hours spent together on the road had been relaxed and enjoyable, and Marlene was excellent company – gracious and undemanding, and appreciative of everything that was arranged for her. Knowing that nothing he booked could compete with the hotels she was used to, Archie had chosen simple country inns to break their journey, full of English charm but suitably anonymous, and he would never forget the look on a Wiltshire landlady’s face when the actress marched into her kitchens to demand the recipe for a venison and chestnut casserole. They talked constantly while they drove, and yet – while Marlene had quizzed him expertly on everything from his job to his favourite foods, teasing him gently at times and flirting when the mood took her – Archie would have been hard pressed to say that he knew her any better now than he did when they left Claridge’s; only once, when she had talked again about the letters that were causing her so much concern, did he glimpse someone more vulnerable beneath the natural self-assurance.
‘You are lucky to come from such a beautiful place,’ she said, as they drove across the wild, treeless moorland between Launceston and Bodmin. The landscape was dotted with granite boulders and thickets of rough furze, devoid of human markers except for the occasional isolated farmhouse, and it interested Archie that she should find its starkness beautiful. ‘Why did you leave it?’ she asked.
‘College first, and then the war.’
‘You must have been young to fight.’
‘That’s kind of you, but not really. I was twenty when I signed up, and there was nothing particularly young about that, even in those early days. I suppose you were still at school?’
Marlene nodded. ‘They made us knit for the soldiers – mittens and scarves, sweaters if you were older. I’m sure they only did it to make us feel useful.’ She stared out of the window at a dark mass of rock on the summit of a hill, silhouetted against a pale sky like the ruins of a castle. ‘The wool was so rough, and I could never keep it from tangling. They called it field grey, which puzzled me. I’d never seen a field that was grey, but I suppose the battlefields were.’
‘Brown and grey, yes – like a never-ending winter. I remember coming back to England on leave, and all those summer greens seemed so artificial.’
She lit a cigarette for each of them and looked curiously at Archie. ‘Why are you smiling? You surely don’t have fond memories of that time.’
‘No, not at all. I was just trying to reconcile the little girl and her tangled knitting with the woman I saw showing the Nazis out of her hotel suite.’
‘The little girl was defiant too.’
‘Yes, I’m sure she was.’
‘I was thrown out of school for it,’ she said, a hint of pride in her voice. ‘There was a French POW camp near my home and we weren’t supposed to go anywhere near it, but I loved France, even then. On Bastille Day I took the soldiers white roses and pushed them through the barbed wire fence. Someone saw me doing it and the mothers demanded my blood.’
Archie smiled again, picturing the scene. ‘How did your family fare during the war?’ he asked, realising how little he knew of Marlene’s life outside her films. ‘Did your father fight?’
She shook her head. ‘No. My father was a lieutenant in the Royal Prussian police, but he died when I was six and I never really got to know my stepfather. He was killed in the middle of the war. Most of my cousins, too. By the time it was over, we were a family of women, all in black.’ She had spoken vehemently against the Nazis throughout the journey, expressing opinions very similar to his own, and it was easy to forget that he and her family had fought on opposite sides. ‘It seemed to go on for so long,’ she said. ‘My cousin Hans said that your men pitied ours towards the end. They threw cans of food over whenever the gunfire stopped. He loved your corned beef.’ There was a weariness in her voice, which spoke for both sides. ‘It’s good to know that people can think for themselves when it really matters, isn’t it? It gives me hope.’
Large, uneven flakes of snow began to fall onto the car and Archie looked anxiously at the sky, hoping that the weather wasn’t about to take a turn for the worse, but the flurry was nothing more than that and the last few miles passed quickly. Marlene’s delight on seeing the castle for the first time was a distraction from his own more complex feelings; with his parents and many of his friends now dead, coming home for Christmas was invariably a tangle of comfort and loss, much harder than staying away. He had seen St Michael’s Mount at midnight under a harvest moon and shimmering in the midday sun, ghostly through a sea mist or defiant against a raging storm, but it always transported him back to his childhood. ‘We’re here in time,’ he said, before his emotions could get the better of him. ‘The tide looks like it’s only just turned, so we can cross by car.’
‘That’s probably just as well. I have never been a very good swimmer.’
Archie announced their arrival at the estate office on the mainland, and by the time he had driven across the causeway, Hilaria was waiting on the quayside, flanked by two footmen and a man with a camera. ‘I feel as if I’m about to be presented at court,’ Marlene said.
‘I suppose you are, in a manner of speaking. They’re used to royalty here.’
He drew up by the museum and opened the door for Marlene, noticing how many of the islanders had suddenly found a reason to be out and about or sitting at their windows. ‘Miss Dietrich, how lovely to meet you,’ Hilaria said. ‘Thank you for coming. Your support is so valuable to us.’
‘I’m glad to help with such a good cause. It’s very good of you to open your home for Christmas – and what a magnificent home it is.’
Archie waited while Hilaria talked briefly about the island and its history. She seemed completely at ease, and – not for the first time – he envied the English aristocracy their self-confidence, then reminded himself that in this particular case it stemmed from more than generations of entitlement. Hilaria was a remarkable woman in her own right, an adventurous, inquisitive traveller who had flown across the equator and sailed around the world, showing as little regard for safety in later life as she had when they played together as children. She and Marlene were bound to hit it off, he thought; they had so much in common.
The photographer hovered awkwardly on the sidelines, a guest whose presence was tolerated rather than welcomed, and Archie felt sorry for him. He had expected someone older, a version of the pushy, world-weary journalists he had often had to deal with in his work, but Alex Fielding was around thirty, dressed impeccably in a dark blue suit which was new enough to have been bought especially for the weekend; he looked incapable of intruding on anyone’s privacy, let alone a Hollywood star’s. ‘You must be from The Times,’ Archie said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m—’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Penrose – yes, I recognised you. From the newspaper,’ he added, seeing the look of surprise on Archie’s face. ‘You’ve been splashed across our pages several times in the last few months.’
Hilaria waved them over before Archie had a chance to respond. ‘Miss Dietrich, allow me to introduce Alex Fielding from The Times. Mr Fielding was just telling me how often he’s photographed you in the past, so he’ll probably be familiar to you.’