Read Online The Poellenberg Inheritance by Evelyn Anthony - Free Book Online Page A

recognised the elusive quality for what it was. He had nice manners, he was attractive in a rough-hewn way, he had authority and a sense of humour, but he was fundamentaly a rough, tough man from a completely different world. Nothing in existence would have persuaded her to lunch with him except that one phrase. ‘It’s just possible he’s still alive.’
    She had got over the initial shock; her hands were quite steady, she lit cigarettes and the lighter flame didn’t tremble; she ordered a Tom Collins before lunch and watched the famous actor giving a performance for the benefit of the restaurant. Fisher sat beside her, drinking Scotch and soda, letting her take time to relax. She looked strained and he felt rather sorry for her. He wondered exactly how much she knew about her father, and felt instinctively that from the way she talked it was the minimum. Killed in Russia in 1944. Full stop. He had spent two hours reading through the file at Bonn, making notes, reaching back into the past, looking at old photographs.
    Many of them showed the father of the girl, whose elbow was touching his at that moment. A good-looking, impressive man, splendidly uniformed. Was it possible she knew anything beyond the fact of a soldier father killed in battle? He didn’t think so. He gave her the menu and suggested the restaurant’s speciality.
    â€˜Would you like to eat first,’ he said, ‘and then we can get down to business? There’s no reason not to enjoy a good lunch.’
    â€˜I’m not very hungry,’ Paula said. ‘I’d rather talk now. Please tell me, Mr. Fisher, what is this all about?’
    â€˜Can I ask you a couple of questions first? I’m not being difficult, but it will help me to explain if I know how much you’re in the picture. Your mother has remarried, hasn’t she?’
    â€˜Yes; soon after the war ended. She married an Englishman called Ridgeway, he was billeted in our house. I was about three and a half at the time. I never knew my father, he was away fighting.’
    â€˜Did your mother talk about him to you – what did she tell you about him?’
    â€˜Practically nothing,’ Paula said. ‘She’s not a confiding type of person. You’ll see that when you try asking her questions yourself.’
    â€˜If you can help me enough I may not have to bother her,’ Fisher said.
    â€˜I hope you won’t,’ she answered. ‘It’ll upset her very much. She never wants to discuss my father. I think she’d rather pretend he never existed at all. Anyway that’s the attitude she’s always taken with me.’
    â€˜So she told you nothing; he was a general in the German army and he was killed. On the retreat from Stalingrad, I believe.’
    â€˜If you say so.’ Paula lit another cigarette; she had chain smoked since they sat down.
    â€˜You don’t like your mother much, do you?’ Fisher said suddenly.
    â€˜That’s a very personal remark.’
    â€˜I’m sorry. It wasn’t relevant; just an observation. So that’s all you know? Nothing about his war record, who his friends were, any family left living?’
    â€˜No, nothing.’ She hesitated. It was humiliating to admit such total ignorance. He wanted information from her, she wanted to get it back. She had never wanted anything so much in her life. ‘Wait a minute, I do know of somebody. There was an officer who served under him in the German Army. He called himself Black.’
    â€˜Black?’ Fisher said. ‘That’s funny. He had an aide de camp whose name was Albrecht Schwarz. How do you know this?’
    â€˜Because this man Black came to see me last week,’ Paula said.
    Fisher didn’t twitch a muscle. He even sipped at his drink before he said anything.
    â€˜Black came to see you? Here in England?’
    Albrecht Schwarz, anglicised to Black. There was a companion file on him,