Short story part 2 – what is Greta hiding?
Greta is forced to reveal a family secret that has been kept from her granddaughter
At Bredon Market police station, a door opened and DS Hughes backed carefully into the office carrying two cups of tea. “Milk and one sugar. Sorry, Guv, no doughnuts today. Eccles cake do you?” DI Tessa Carpenter peered resentfully at the pastry balanced on the lid of the cardboard cup. “Suppose it will have to. What’s the matter with the canteen? Can’t even organise a decent doughnut?”
“There’s someone waiting to see you.” Hughes tugged a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. “Miss Elizabeth Stanmore. She’s got a Mrs Greta Hurst with her.” “Greta? Unusual name. Thought it went out of fashion with the incomparable Garbo.”
“Girl’s grandmother, I think.”
“So why do they want CID? I take it this is not just a case of a missing moggy or someone throwing litter over their garden wall?”
Hughes frowned. “Seems she’s been getting threatening letters.” Tessa looked up sharply. “Miss Stanmore?” “No, the grandmother.” The detective inspector prised the lid off her tea and took a thoughtful sip. “Now who’s going to do a thing like that to a dear old granny, eh?”
“And what on earth can she have done to deserve that?” Hughes speculated. “Cheated by selling a shopbought sponge on the WI stall?”
“Oi, you! Less of that ageist stereotyping! I’ll have you know my grandma runs marathons faster than I could. And I’d join the WI myself if I had the time. At least they do nice jammy doughnuts.”
She took two quick gulps of tea, then rammed the Eccles cake onto an old-fashioned spike holding odd slips of paper. “Right. Let’s go and find out, shall we?”
Libby jumped to her feet as soon as the police officers entered the room. Holding out a bundle of letters, she said: “These were sent to my nanna. What are you going to do about it?” Tessa regarded the girl over the top of her spectacles. Early 20s, long dark hair, a tiny gold nose stud. The older woman didn’t look as though she could run a marathon, but no-one would have described her as a grey-haired old lady. She was trim and elegant.
The girl wasn’t being deliberately rude, Tessa decided. She was clearly concerned for her grandmother. Tessa took the letters and fanned them out so that Hughes, peering over her shoulder, could read them too.
The notes were written in large capital letters with a black felt-tip pen. “Your father killed mine, now you pay for it,” she read out loud. “Your father ruined my life. Now I will ruin yours.”
‘Why do they want CID? I take it it’s not just a case of a missing moggy or someone throwing litter..?’
Greta appeared close to tears. “I threw away the first one, but the message was the same. I thought someone was just playing a prank.” Libby burst out: “Oh come on, Nanna! Something that spiteful is not a joke.”
“No, it’s not,” Tessa agreed.
“But my father never killed anyone in his life so what else was I to think?” “When did you get the first one?” “About six weeks ago. Then nothing for a while. Those last three all came in the last few weeks.”
“Posted or hand-delivered?” “Posted.”
“I don’t suppose you kept the envelopes?” Tessa asked.
“She didn’t,” Libby said, looking reproachfully at Greta. “But I kept the last one, the one threatening to kill her.” Tessa slipped the envelope into a plastic evidence bag and said to Greta: “Tell me about your father.”
It was Libby who answered: “My great-granddad only died two years ago. He was 95 and had been a pilot in the war. He was shot down and spent a year in a prisoner-of-war camp, until he escaped in 1994.”
Tessa heard the pride in her voice. “His name?”
“Ralph Brand.”
Tessa observed a tiny flicker cross Greta’s face that made her pause. “Could these letters be from someone whose family was killed in a bombing raid?”
No. He flew fighters,” Greta said, placing a hand over Libby’s to stop her interrupting. “He wasn’t one of the bomber boys.”
After a few more questions, Tessa asked Hughes to show them out with assurances that the matter would be looked into. When he returned, the DI had the phone pressed to her ear. “Yes, I’ll hold,” she said, waving her free hand at him. “Right, Sherlock. Get forensics to give that envelope the once-over. I want to know where it was posted and see if the grapho guys can give us anything on the writing. Then I want you to look up all the civilian records – hatched, matched and dispatched. OK?” “Who you on to?” he asked, prodding his computer into action.
“The RAF.”
A few days later, DI Carpenter knocked on the door of Home Farm. ‘The strain is beginning to tell,’ she thought as she caught sight of Greta’s face. The woman’s worried expression relaxed when she saw Tessa.
“Do come in,” she said.
After she had brought her visitor a cup of tea and a slice of chocolate sponge, Greta perched herself
The notes were written in large capital letters... ’your father killed mine, now you pay for it’
nervously on the edge of a chair. Seated opposite, Tessa lowered her chin and peered at her over her spectacles. “Do you know,” she remarked pleasantly, “I can’t find any mention of a Ralph Brand either in the birth records or those of the RAF. Or, come to that, in any of the German Stalag Luft camps.”
Greta sighed. “No, you wouldn’t. He wasn’t in the RAF. And the prisoner-of-war camp was not far from where we are now. Libby knew my father as Ralph, but his name was really Rolf Brandt and he flew Messerschmidts. He was in the Luftwaffe.”
Pointing to the note lying on the table between them, Greta added: “Whoever is sending these letters knows it too. And they have a long memory.”